What would do you in this situation?

Would you knock it off wth the pedantic bull crap?

Yes. We get it. Safe haven is a term the dot uses in regards to hazmat.

Guess what, people commonly use that term to refer to the hos provisions regarding driving past your hours in unexpected circumstances. Don't like it? Too bad.

 

I'm wondering if you understand how the mac 9 works.
There is a 'c' option to 'counter' the pick up and/or delivery time.

You can use it to adjust the times that you pick up and/or deliver a load.

If I get a pick up or delivery at midnight I'm like... no way.
Why? I'll be asleep.
I use the mac 9 to put in my own times, on my own schedule.
And if it doesn't match what the customers want for times, the pplan is taken off me.

What happens next?
I get a new pplan, which I will respond to accordingly.

Swift is SO flexible with this. You do not have to adhere to what they 'think' you can do.

I run my own hours, for the most part. There are always a few exceptions.
But you can do it as well.
Just treat the truck and your time as your own. You run things out here - not them.
That is always how I have done things over the past 6 years here, and it will not change.

I am the captain of this ship, and I WILL do things my way!

 

Since I am "pedantic" and full of "bull crap," please do help us all out and explain your understanding of the "HOS provisions regarding driving past your hours in unexpected circumstances" and how they would apply to RedRover's flagrant HOS violations. Oh, please school me.

 

Actually, I do haul hazmat. One of these loads in question had 18,000lb of 1 quart propane tanks on it. Not the type of thing I want to park on a ####ing shoulder or an offramp. But to answer your question, if my choices are to break the law or sit with no fuel staring down a grade in a blizzard, with nothing to eat or drink... #### the police.

There is a happy resolution to all of this though... My DM was apparently a stand in for a dude who had either quit or been fired and I guess they didn't think she was doing a great job or something because everyone is being bounced around to new DM or home terminal. Basically nothing is going to come of all of this crap. Now to just avoid DOT for 3-4 more days and it never happened.

 

Your logs will be held by the carrier for 6 months, subject to review by an inspection by auditors anytime. This is why it is important to keep the logs 100% compliant. With Swift it may raise your Risk Assessment score which puts you on the Swift watch list.

Moosetek13 mentioned macro9, i totally forgot about that one. Yes, absolutely trip plan your load before accepting it and adjust pick up and delivery times to match your do-able hours. If you try to run the Swift Plus 1 system you will crash for sure.

 

Excellent point. Never want to be out in the woods here without fuel.





That extra couple gallons of fuel could save your life. I was about 25km up an ice bush road last winter (and the start of that road was over 100km from the nearest gas station). I idled into a sharp switchback and the truck, well she didn't want to turn. Just about ended up sliding into to weeds. No cell service and very little traffic. If I got stuck, worst case scenario I'd have had to stay with the truck all night and walk out to the main road to flag down some help in the daylight. I keep a winter survival kit as well as a big lunch during winter because you never know. I keep a can of bear spray in my truck too. It works on more than just bears. It'll help deter other animals (and crackheads) that get too close for comfort.

 

My head hurts from reading this.

Redrover, just read what is said here form those who have faced all of this many times before. Don't try to defend yourself because as admirable as your defense is, it really comes down to your decision making process is flawed and having people criticize you is better than you actually getting into a fatality and then dealing with the outcome of that, which could easily have happened.

 

Did I miss something? What do the police have anything to do with this? You left the scene of a accident.

 

I laughed for a good 10 minutes after reading that. Funniest thing I've heard in awhile.

 

She left the scene of an accident. I was stuck there for 8 hours plus. She didn't want me to call swift to have her windshield replaced because she was worried it would involve DOT and she didn't have insurance, which meant she was driving illegally.

To everyone else, I learned a good many lessons which at this point we are just rehashing. I now keep a ####load of food onboard, and water, a zero degree sleeping bag, a carton of smokes and enough cash to make me a target. I also have 2 5 gallon cans of diesel in one of my side boxes. Which reminds me, I should probably get a couple gallons of def.

Escaped with my life, no preventables or service failure by the grace of God.

I also learned some valuable lessons about chaining. Namely, if I have to do it 5 times in 3 days, I should get in line on the side of the road and take a week of bad miles on the chin. Also, don't let yourself creep up to 50mph coming down a grade and hit the brakes with chains on. Tires can explode and chains can wrap around things, like people and tandems.

The only advice I'm probably going to ignore here is that chain requirements mean automatic shutdown. What it really means is automatic slowdown and pay more attention. I can live with a bad week, not with no week at all.