TRUCKERS; ' How do you spend your 34 hrs?'

I didn't say anything about life style. I spoke about the ridiculous idea that a driver should be paid for every minute he is away from the house and how several other careers require employees to travel for work and they don't get paid for the off duty time either.

 

Completely agreed. In my 9 years driving I have not made it a home a total of maybe 20 nights, and those were all 7 or 8 years ago. I haven’t not made it home in at least 7 years. I got a house and I like being home. Still average between 140-150k miles every year. Life is good.

I understand I’m very lucky as far as every day goes. But I absolutely would not put up with doing a reset on the road ever

 

I have 2 family members,both pilots, they say they are called , First Officers.

 

I'll bobtail somewhere and get into something interesting. First sleep, eat, hydrate and rest. Then when that's out of the way, (Laundry etc) it's time to go somewhere and engage in a activity locally that totally removes my mind from trucking.

Several decades ago I had run my recap out against the 70 hour rule enough to require two days in Polk City FL off I-4 which meant the aviation museum there. Got rested, cleaned up and so on and then engaged in simulated flying within the musuem of flight there as well as examining each and every exhibit. The B17 they had I found to be a tight fit end to end but learned alot. What a plane for it's time. Eventually on computer I would take a P38 against a staff with a zero one on one a couple of times. Due to a variety of technical reasons that particular go around was resolved first in his favor because the computer modeled armor in the tail of his zero. What I should have was shot at his wing root. Kind of hard to do when vertical and out of steam with a fighter almost three times gross weight. He came after me and it became difficult. You cannot out turn but you need distance then come through in a straight line. It's unfortunate the computers either threw issues or the fight was called off. I had flopped over, deployed flaps then applied the power and came out of the turn straight at him If I was going to take him it would be because he did not have the mass to absorb the damage I was fixing to put on him. It's a shame that particular fight was not resolved.

Eventually the museum moved on to do other more important things to support Aviation history.

Many times I would be near the harbor in Baltimore, not too far from the Plaza, grab a little sail in the harbor. It's not much of a rental but it's sailing until the tide decides to come in. The rollers are enough to make things tricky. It's alot of work to do it right and so on. But it absolutely causes me to immerse and forget about that truck. They can burn it for all I care. Until it's time to get back to work again with a load dispatch. And the food in the Harborplace with tourist pricing is just too expensive, but I'll spend a dollar to enjoy something other than basic 76 fare.

In my time we ran recaps prior to 2002. None of that 34 option, 30 minute stop etc. None of that. You got 10 hours to run and then 8 to sleep and get going again. You could split it 5 and 4 or whatever all week long as long you had 70 overall hours plus getting back your 8th day on recap hours.

On certain companies that told you scram, see you monday from the yard with a tractor full of fuel.. well you are gone. Maybe 6 states away visiting friends. But be back by monday or be hunted. lolz.

Those days are gone forever.

I consider myself lucky. Wife and I managed to get in quite a little bit of a number of half days or a full day doing something that is good for her and I. Visiting burial grounds of her family was one example. The german deli back home was another. She aint never had dumplings the way they fix it then. Among other things we did.