USA Truck Journey - STARTS

Went to Chicago to drop a trailer at Norfolk Southern. What a place... Man it was a nightmare to find the empty I was supposed to pick up and then even more a nightmare to get out of there and back on a road meant for a big truck.

From there I went to Grainger on Laramie Ave. It went ok there, but the trailer I was picking up was damaged, someone hit the side of the trailer and put a big gouge in it. Dispatch told me to deliver it to Grainger in Mississipin in the morning.

So far been a busy week...

I have also been doing some math on HOS and Maximum Miles you can run in a perfect world in 7 days.

If you have 70 hours to drive to start for 8 days, then you have to pre-trip for minimum of 15 minutes each day (2 hours for 8 days) that takes you to 68 hours for an 8 day period.

Then if you fuel 5 times (which is my average in 8 days) and put 15 minutes for a fuel stop that (1 hour and 15 minutes). That leaves 66.75 hours for an 8 day period.

If you deliver 8 loads and put 15 minutes for each load as a delivery (2 hours) that leaves you 64.75 hours available to drive in a 8 day period.

If you were to drive the entire 64.75 hours for 8 days in a 62 mph hour truck (This means you are running wide open with no traffic, etc. the whole time) 64.75 hours x 62 mph truck = 4014.5 miles in 8 days.

So if you want to see how many miles per day you can average if you are a super trucker that would be 4014.5 / 8 = 501.81 average max miles per day. So if you are a super trucker and can run wide open the whole time you can only get 501.81 x 3512.68 miles per week max.


I did the numbers with a more realistic figure of averaging 55 MPH and came up with 3116 miles in a 7 day period. Sure you can have weeks that are way over these numbers, because you ran the miles in the previous week, but the math does not lie. You are either lying about how many miles you average a week or you are really being creative on your log book.

That is my 2 cents on the miles per week thing.

 

Dropped off my Grainger load at Southhaven, MS this morning and picked up a paper load in Morrilton, AR going to Kalamazoo, MI. I only get 8.25 hours on my 70 back at midnight, so I am going to try and run about 450 from here in North Little Rock. Kalamazoo is about 760mi from here and load is supposed to deliver at 0700 on Monday.