some questions

The load tells you how long you have to work....if u have a 1500 mile trip and you load monday and have to be there thursday then about 12 hours the first two days 8 hours on that wensday...leave u plenty of time to rest and deliver...only time I work 14 hours is a loading or unloading day...or if im doing both in the same day

 

WitchingHour is spot on... do not expect consistency.. I am on a dedicated account and technically shojld have more consistency than regional drivers and OTR.. but actually dont.. even though I go to the same place.. sometimes it can go smoothly and I am in and out.. other times there are hiccups and delays..

As far as sleeping while your waiting.. well, there is the point that WitchingHour made.. dont want to sleep througn your call over the CB.. also, you may just not be tired.. or if you do sleep then when you shut down for the night to do your 10 reset you are not tired cause you sleep earlier...

 

The key to this question is here.

The average length of haul will determine your driving vs total work rate. That rate is very low with the megas around 50%.

14 hours on the logbook and another 2 -10 for free. Other days they will have nothing for you and will sit around waiting for work.

Sometimes but it is best not to be choosy without good reason; The spite-full office jocks that run the companies will hold out on you if they can't get their crappy loads pulled.

 

Yes. Sometimes you can sleep normal hrs, sometimes you are sleeping at noon. At least if you are running 48 otr. Local or dedicated can be more consistent, but not always. You learn to sleep when you can.

Shippers and receivers can vary. Some will come knock on your door or call you, others will expect you to watch for a green light at the dock or actually be on the dock while your loaded or unloaded. Or you could have one of those jobs that you have to load or unload yourself.

Someone posted earlier that 14 hrs is the most you can work legally, which of course is incorrect. You can't DRIVE after 14 hrs from the time your day starts. You can be past 14 hrs and still post trip, unload, etc.

Hrs per week not driving? Typically 15-20 minutes a day for pre and post trip. The same for fueling. 10-30 minutes at a shipper or receiver. You may have 4-5 loads one week, or just one 3000 mile run for the week. Multiple stops can really add to your on duty not driving time.

 

Unless your local...trucking has not set schedule

 

Yea I suspect everybody goes through that and theres no sense in it.

 

On the local note, that's not even guaranteed. Get into something like road construction, and you're better off not to make plans. Some industries, you can get a vague semblance of a schedule, but there's variables in that, as well.. say, you're working C&D, and the customer with half a bin to be collected Monday suddenly has four bins full Wednesday, or a new customer suddenly appears on your route. Or a classic one of mine, that little side gig of mine running from Colorado Springs to Kremmling and back... I'd try to leave around 4 a.m. to be the first one there and the first one loaded, and I can usually be back between noon and 1 p.m., but there'll often be times a monkey wrench gets thrown into those plans, e.g., weather at Eisenhower-Johnson, shipment not being fully manufactured, or my favorite - water pipes at the shipper frozen, and the fire marshall not letting them go into production until they're thawed out - I didn't get back until 10 p.m. that night.
So, even in local work, one shouldn't expect constants to be the norm.

 

When I was local I work 6pm to 6 am Monday thru Friday

 

You know the anecdotal argument is considered fallacious reasoning, right?
That aside, that's one experience out of many different types of local jobs. Saying that it was consistent for you isn't going to be reflective of everyone else's experiences with local work. Most of my local work was in the road building industry, where you'd be subject to weather, the big rush as projects go into the penalty phase, etc. So it varies between jobs. Either way, you can't really guarantee to someone that they'll have a set schedule once they get into local work. They might, but there remains a good chance that they won't.