What is normal? - regarding Freight Managers

There are many variables when it comes to getting home. Hours of service, traffic, flatland or mountians, delays at shippers or recivers. I know when i first started i was a bit slower getting around. As far as fm's, he could have a bad fm who doesnt really care about him or it could be things beyond the fm's control. Also i noticed he is running the east coast. He wont be able to roll as quickly due to cities like dc, baltimore, philly, ect as compared to running across the wide open midwest or southwest. Have him talk with his fm to see where they could both improve on time management but with this career nothing is set in stone. Personally ive had to shut down 1 hour from home before on a friday then leave sunday w/o a restart to make my appt monday and have hours to roll when empty.

 

It will be this way wherever you go, especially with "regional" trucking models that have or claim "weekend home" policies. Herding 200 feral cats in a large field into 20 large pet-carriers is much easier than getting 200 drivers home (with wildly varying geographic locations, no less) by 5:00 pm EVERY Friday. Trucking is a fickle business at best, and barring any sort of dedicated run or local trucking operation, you can expect things to not go as you'd like from time to time, even under the best of operations systems.

 

A bit more information is needed here but..

Most companies have a way for the driers to relay to their dispathers (fms) hours they have used and hours available, either by phone, by qualomm or both...Hubby needs to make sure he does that daily, accurately and by the time requested by the company.

Next..if he neds to do a 34 hr restart..make the dispatcher aware that he is starting a restart with start time and date and approximate end time.

It also sounds like his fm might be wanting him in a round about and quasi legal way of asking to do what is caled a california restart..IE fudging his logs to make it LOOK like he did a 34 hr restart. As an owner op I used these a lot..had to but if caught doing it DOT is beyond unfriendly about it so its best if he doesn't get in the habit of doing it.

With that said..hubby should understand that i logs the only things that have to matc up exact are things that can be traced...like when he fueled, when he picked up, and when he unloaded. I'm not urging or suggesting he do anything illegal in his driving habits....but en minutes here or ten minutes there n a log over a week can add up

A lot of small outfits tend to look the other way on logs to a degree as long as those things match up to their and the drivers benefit..for the guys that ca figure out the tricks t keep rolling are te ones who excel.

Here's the legal way of not ever having to do a 34 hr restart

take 70 hrs and divide by 8 days....comes to 8.75 hrs per day right...

Now..if hubby leaves the house, does his pretrip, drives, fuels etc in 8.75 hours every day for 8 days..he will not have to reset...ever..in a perfect world it can be done..

But we live in th world we live in..here's where it gets tricky..there's a loophole...lets say hes going through philly..and its during rush our and all backed up..it takes him three hours to drive a distance he could in say..an hour and a half..he can log it as an hour and a half...As long as he doesn't travel further than he legally could under optimum operating conditions..he can log it as the normal driving time and nobody can or ever will question it.

If his company uses paperless logs..that goes out the window..it can only be done on a paper log..paperless records actual truck movement time as drive time and and because of it denies that loophole.

There are a ton of little tricks drivers have used forever to avoid that check killing 34 hr restart

Now..here is the kicker..When I drove I worked for 4 different companies over 6 years..either as an owner op or company driver..governed trucks and ungoverned...

Most load planners that know what they are doing plan loads if and at all possible based on that 8.75 hr on duty time and if the driver stocks to it as close as he can and stays off duty exactly 10 hrs and not a minute more he'll deliver on time, pick up on time, and it will be easier for his fm and load planners to keep him under a load, and he will become a popular driver because he doesn't have to sit through a 34 hr restart..now..rules may have changed a bit since 06 but not enough to prevent that..

If he sticks to it..he'll be safer, always be well rested and always be on time..even DOT won't fault him for it..they may question it a bit and double check him if his total on duty time is always 8.75 hrs in his log but as long as his fuel stops match, his Bills of lading time stamps match, then they can't do anything about it.

It is the fully legal way to keep rolling..

Now lets put it down monetarily shall we?

Lets say his company pays him .25 cpm His truck is governed at 65 mph..that means at most he can legally log at a speed average of 55 mph which gives you a maximum travelled distance of 550 miles in an 11 hr drive time but in doing so means that in just over six days..hes out of hours forcing a 34 hr restart before day 8 of his time in the truck ok..

550x6 is 3300 miles at 55 mph as long as he is under one load and moving the whole time..not facturing in stops at shippers/consignees/unload times etc so at day six he's facing out of hours and 34 hr restart which means hours won't fall off for one and a half days or reset to 70 so in either case he's parked..so for day 7..no miles..he's sitting, eating, and losing money

now..lets do scenario 2..perfect world conditions like above...one load, no stops etc..

55s8.75=481 miles for the day x7 for the week 3368 miles and he's still rolling and will always hae 8.75 hrs avail to drive..never has to park the truck for more than ten hours per day

so..lets put it to money....25x3300x52=42900 gross for the year
.25x3368x52=43784 gross for the year

 

I have run the 8 3/4 hour per day thing. The problem is as a company driver, FM, dispatchers or whatever they want to call themselves today see 11 hours driving per day. So they want to see 11 hours on the logs. I don't know how many times I got into it with a dispatcher about that fact.

You can either push hard and sit someplace, or your can run easy and never stop.

In the end (and you proved it) the cost to do either one is very little in the big picture. $900 at the end of the year is MORE than offset by the money spent sitting around bored and buying truckstop crap.

It sounds like your husband has a normal dispatcher that is struggling to plan past one or two loads. The time I did dispatch I learned both sides of the phone need to work together and have some #### good communication on what is happening. I have seen dispatchers hide loads from drivers not wanting to let them know they have a reload. I have seen others that let the driver know there's a reload on the other end waiting for them.

Guess which one worked REALLY hard to make the load on time. Especially with a weekend coming up.

 

I tried to do it as Peterbeatinit explains it whenever I could and it worked very well. When I first started driving, I had 2 O/O and a 25+ year company driver explain it to me also and it worked very well.

If you always have hours to run, you can get quite a bit 'down the road' on a daily basis.

I've done both ways. I guess it's whatever 'floats your boat.'

 

The 8.75 hours a day on duty RARELY works out [for most] in today's trucking world. There's too much 800 mile freight that needs to be delivered inside of 30 hours, or similarly. Then factor in customer needs, receiver needs, appointments, weather/traffic delays. To illustrate my point, get a load of meat in Dodge going to Boston, and tell your dispatcher you can't make the appointment driving 8.75 hours a day and need to move the appointment back 24 hours and let me know how he and the load planner reacts.

 

STexan..its all about timing..if you tim your driving shifts it can still be don inside of 30 hrs driving an 800 mile load

I pick up at 9 am at shipper, check in..mark..then off duty till loaded..lets say 2 hr load time..

the load delivers at 3 pm the next day check in right.ok..

so I got to the shipper the day before during my 8.75 hrs..so when I go on duty for check in I also go ahead and do my pretrip in the log book...I haven' moved yet...

I get loaded, go to drive line, drive by the odo 460 miles..mark 8.5 hrs driving which puts me parked at 7:30 pm..ten hour break up at 3:30 AM giving me nearly 12 hrs to drive 350 miles, two hrs waiting to unload in off duty, get dispatched, two hrs drive time to get to next shipper..

Now tell me how it can't be done LOL..Yeah..there are potential wrenches in the works but adjustments can be made for those 8.75 is a goal to aim for..there might be days where you drive 45 minutes extre and days you don't..I might get to that reciever and not get a dispatch till the next morning..thats fine..its two hours extra that are banked....

If you sit down with your dispatcher and show them on paper how the system works..I guarantee that within a week they'll ask all their drivers to go to that system..it makes it so easy to dispatch and load plan that way..they'll love it and so will you Its all about communication and info exchange..also about estimated time of arrival and when you give them your availability

Petey

 

The load delivers at 3:00PM? What world are you hauling in? Of course there are some instances where the math dictates you can work 8.75 hour shifts for a few days and make your appointment(s) but the idea that it can be done for weeks at a time everyday? Besides, who the hell wants to work 10 days out of 10? How are you going to work in any "home-time" and keep that methodology going? Kind of hard to work in a fishing trip when home on the weekend with that implementation, isn't it?

 

You said 800 miles in 30 hours so I just put it out in a 30 hour time frame doesn't really matter when the pick up or drop off are..it can still be done..

When have you seen a company that hires rookies let them go home after 10 days out..Really?

And if I'm not on home time I dang sure don't want to be sitting doing a restart somewhere..I'd rather be moving..besides..at 8.75 hours in a 24 hr period that still gives me15.25 hrs to goof off and sleep...

If I'm going to do a 34 hr I would rather be curled up in my house in my bedroom sleepin and then on the couch in front of my big screen or out flyin..(see hobbies on the road thread)

So now here is another challenge for you ST..

Take what you get paid per mile and figure mileage for a week at 55 mph average speed straight run perfect world vs runin 11 hrs a day for six days then 4 hrs on the seventh day and having to stop and/or restart....You actually cme out ahead at 8.75 hrs..I did the math itself in a post in the dac reports area under pam..

even at .24 cpm at the end of the year..running the 8.75 log..was 900 bucks more than runnning 11s for six and 4 for the seventh day and restarting

the more you make per mile..the bigger the difference between the two

Which means..that if your truck is rolling more miles..then also means your company is making more money as well..show them the math..

Not only will it shut em up but they will show it to their other drivers

Petey