What do you do when not driving?

We aren't all on elogs, friend..

If I'm not driving I'm usually trying to catch a quick nap.

 

Its a tool , like any other, you have to know how to use it and what you can cook in it.
If you try to put a t-bone steak in it, your gonna have a bad time.
But pasta and rice (and i mean actual normal pasta and rice , not some instant crap )come out perfect every time.
For lunch I am a soup , salad and sandwich guy because I can make that stuff happen fast at a rest stop and roll once my 30 minute break is up

 

Get out of the truck and walk. Even just a couple of times around the truck will help. The human body wasn't designed to stay in a sitting position for hours at a time. Get out and stretch those legs.

 

So a small correction of your understanding... You can drive for 11 hours in a 14 hour window. Basically that means, that once you start your day you have 14 hours to drive up to 11 hours, any time you stop, that 14 hr timer keeps ticking but the 11 hr clock only runs while you are driving. There are waus to "pause" that 14 hr clock, but for now its best just to learn the basics so you don't accidently get a log book violation.

Once either of the 11 hr, or 14 hr clocks run out you have to stop driving. You can still do On-Duty tasks, but you cannot drive again until you complete at least 10 consecutive hrs of Off-Duty or Sleeper, or any combination of the 2. Once that 10 hrs is complete both the 11 hr and 14 hr clocks reset. You can continue this until you use 70 hrs of On-Duty/Driving time in any consecutive 8 day period. So technically you can drive up to 14 hrs in a 24 hr period of time. This is not very common, or practical. Even when I'm running super hard I might get 13 hrs of driving in a 24 hr period.

But as to your actual question... When I stop I am doing one of the following: Eat, Shower, talk to family, relaxing and surf TTR or YouTube, and SLEEP. The VAST majority of my down time is spent sleeping. If you can it is a good thing to teach yourself to sleep WHENEVER you can, day or night, tired or not, learn to lay down and sleep.... Unloading at a reciever, sleep... Waiting out bad weather, sleep... Road closure, sleep... waiting for orders from dispatch, sleep... Waiting for roadside repair, sleep.

Many companies it seems make thier drivers sit alot waiting for orders. That is not the case at the company I drive for, I have my next load information before I deliver my current load. The more time I spend driving, the faster I can complete a load and be onto the next one. The more loads I move, the more miles I cover... Which means more money in my pocket.

I'm not out here away from my family to sit at a truck stop, I'm out here to make a living and support my family... Part of that, to me anyway, is having time to be at home to spend with my family. The longer I dink around the less time I can afford to take off to spend with my family.

So when I'm in the truck it is all business, I boogie and get the job done so I can get home to my family. I average about 3700 miles every 8 to 10 days (that time also includes 1 to 3 days at home with my family).

As an example: I left home on 12/6/20 Sunday morning, I will be back home tomorrow 12/12/20 Saturday afternoon. During that time I will have traveled in the truck from Idahofalls, ID to Huntington, WV, delivered a load, then to Cincinnati, OH, got another load, then to Billings, MT, delivered that load, and then deadheaded back to Idahofalls, ID... That is roughly 4000 miles in 6.5 days... And I will still have about 6 hours left over on my 70 hr clock. Many driver think I'm crazy for running that hard, and even more don't think its possible to do it legally... I can assure you it is both possible and legal. It does require good dispatchers, as well as excellent time and log book management skills, and a very good work ethic & personal drive to get it done... Things that dont seem to be very common in this industry anymore.

Dont get me wrong, it is work, ALOT of work to run like that consistently. It can be very exhausting both mentally and physically... There are times that I can't keep it up, and I HAVE to either take extra home time or just take a little more time for myself while I'm in the truck.

Once you are in a truck of your own you will find your own rhythm that works for you and the company... But I will caution you here: YOU are the captain of that ship! DON'T EVER let a dispatcher, driver manager, shipper, receiver, company, or anyone force you do do something you know or feel is illegal or unsafe. If you let them do it once they will do it again and again... And, eventually, it will be you that pays the consequences, not them. You will be fired, stranded, fined, arrested, or maybe even dead... And those that you let force you into doing whatever it was, wont even bat an eye.

 

This new split sleeper berth provision has reduced my free time considerably, and that is *not* a complaint. Our load planners and my DM must be spending a lot of time looking at my logs, because this is the least 'free time' I've had in 3 years of trucking. I'm loving it. Not sleeping long stretches very often, and once you adjust to it, mostly your attitude, sleeping this way is excellent. Studies have shown humans do better on a lot of naps, rather than long unbroken stretches of sleep. No more solar powered trucking for me.

Again, this is *not* a complaint. I'm loving it. Tonight is the first night in almost a week that I've actually had enough free time at the end of the day to play some Plague Inc. on the laptop.

As to cooking, etc... I have a single serve coffee maker, $19 from WalMart. As long as I use half decent coffee, it makes a surprisingly good cup of coffee. I am currently using a microwave, a $60 job from WM again. I also have an egg cooker, but I like making eggs in the nuke, so I'm not really using the egg cooker any more. I have an airfryer, great for dogs, brats, fries, wings, etc. Fast, easy, cheap, $50 or $60 it was. I also have a crockpot soup pot, it's small, and only 50 watts, but it takes about an hour to warm a can of soup, so, again... I nuke it now. If you can swing it, a small 700 watt or so microwave seems to be the most versatile appliance for truck cooking.

For cleanup, I have a spray bottle for water, and one for soapy water, maybe a tablespoon of cheap Dawn in it. LOTS of paper towels. The plain water spray bottle spends a fair amount of time spraying my face in morning and evening, too. Very refreshing, a nice little mini shower for when I can't actually shower. Lots of baby wipes, too, the good Huggy brand.

Unrelated, but essential info for a new driver: g to AutoZone, or O'Reillys, or NAPA, and get a couple of tubes of conductive [dielectric] grease, and squirt some into the contact holes in your electrical pigtail every week or so. Trust me, it's well worth the 5 bucks a tube it'll cost you. It will solve about 90% of your trailer lighting and ABS problems.

Be safe, and good luck!

 

Oh, yeah, and also... as Cattleman said, learn to sleep. If you have trouble with that, and I know I sure did, a google search is your friend. There are some very good, easy, and FREE methods to fall asleep. Not surprisingly, the military has developed the best methods for falling asleep under stressful conditions. The information is readily available.

To cheat you a little... focus your entire attention on your breathing. Count your breaths. If your mind wanders, don't get angry or upset, just accept it, refocus back on your breathing, rinse repeat, repeat, repeat.

 

SLEEP

 

As others have said, you're missing a good chunk of the picture. Between pre-trips, fueling, and waiting on the customer/OPs, odds are that if you run out your 11 hour clock you'll also be knocking on your 14. Now if you're running recaps, then you're only averaging 8.5 hours on duty, so then you'd have a little more free time. It's very easy to fill that free time. What's hard is making yourself go to bed.

After running a full day, you will be exhausted. But once you've gotten out of the truck, eaten dinner, and relaxed for a couple of minutes you won't feel so tired. You'll read one more chapter, or watch one more youtube video until you realize that you've got to be up in 6 hours, so you try to go to sleep. But now you're worried about not getting enough sleep and/or not waking up on time, so you toss and turn, leading to exhaustion.

 

Hookers and Blow!

Duh...

 

Sleep. I always slept as much as I could.