What's the best way for team drivers to split the work?

No, it doesn't. I signed up to drive a truck. If I end up doing most of the driving one week for whatever reason then that's how it goes.

What bugs me is when my codriver has already been in the sleeper 12 hours, its time to roll, and we finally do 3 hours later.

I take all the overnight driving because I like it. It also means the 3 days we are doing pickups I am awake during the day and sleeping at night. I never get rythm.

 

The 5 and 5 are gone. HOS changes made sure of that. That truck will stop.

When I teamed with Spouse in FFE, what we did is put her through a 12 week training, FFE had a book about half a inch thick with goals for each week specifically. Then they paid me a salary while they paid her really poorly, something like .28 a mile. It's fortunate she was a vet with VA disability believe it or not and that income cushioned our famine weeks. (Service connected, not specific to fail a DOT medical obviously)

By the third week were running as hard as a team can run.

I can safely say that there were regular times we would go find a Hamptons or Super 8 Hotel and gtfo out of that truck, park the #### thing and just decompress overnight.

We had a nursery load of annual plants to Iowa from Delaware. 30 stops on that trailer. Loading in Delaware, running to Iowa is a piece of cake for us. Stop number one we arrived the night before for morning, Spouse would do papers, bills and deal with managers and forklift. I stayed in the trailer dealing with the carts, which put my hands, fingers etc at risk. Not to mention confirming that the correct cart went to correct store.

Rolled across Iowa the hard way hitting all 30 stores for that week. 6 days I think in total.

Everything came out perfect. While I worked on getting to the next store, spouse either got the dutch stove put together for the evening meal or put together the skillet for the morning one. Coffee pot was going behind us via inverter. And I took care of the navigation which is one of my strong points. She handled the satellite and longhand entry into our personal load journal we kept each day and more specifically each load.

And her training continued as well per the trainers manual. She would be tested by FFE to either be sent home, demote me to basic driver solo or she will be part of a reefer team and we both get a certain amount paid to our truck per mile. (The salary for me was really good those three months. It convinced me that all drivers should be paid a good salary no matter what.

I had spent a great deal of time trying to teach her some bad things about this industry. For example We were sitting in the bullpen about a block from Guiness Ale loading a trailer while waiting in Rochester NY. A very pretty hooker came up to me asking if I would "Like to spend sometime" The cab window was open and I was tending to the left front steer and lights at that time. Wife in sleeper most certainly heard that proposal. I told this Hooker to essentially go ahead and disappear, thanked her for the attention but former Marine wife hearing that from her would not be too happy. So she took off. However spouse was already briefed on how those things go that I knew of so that kept some sort of order when things did come up and I was proposed to. Guiness being Irish never got along with me, Ive only been there twice. in the 80's and once in spring of 2001. And we were mistreated as always by one Irish manager there verbally. Too much Cultural BS and discriminating etc. It's a shame I liked that product in UK when we traveled there, but to this day I have not spent a dollar on their products. Its really easy for dumb people with big mouths and attitude to mistreat drivers and totally and utterly destroy any chance of a future relationship for business. And that one made sure to do it over and over.

Anyway.

The third and last thing I did with spouse as a team was to be a defender so that when we went into bad areas to load or unload I go into a way of thinking against the predators, thugs, beggars, moochers and sexual offenders to protect the spouse who stays in the sleeper unseen and unheard but with a big blade as a last resort. (USMC Ka-bar. A good blade for that sort of thing.)

Once my spouse disregarded standing orders never to pull down into Jackson TN 76/TA east of Memphis, there is a gravel lot across from the entrance with the small family grave plot by the fuel line where she was to put the truck there every time. But no she pulled into the truckstop complex into the older section itself. Coming back out after fueling she was preyed upon by a sexual offender who further followed her into our cab in a outright home invasion for purposes of sex assault. Me in the bunk had to switch from sleeping to using the knife really fast and strike once against his neck either the major blood vessals or his CSpine section behind the ear. Wife was already all the way across the cab and out of room in the corner.

As the blade was on it's way to take out the bad guy, he hopped from the cab all the way to the pavement and ran, did not stop until he vanished into that old parking lot behind the dining area. What we should have done then and there was to call the Law and have them go truck to truck until we located him and that would be that for him. Two felony counts to start off. But no, we chose to get moving. And so we did.

We have not been back to Jackson TN since then. It has lost any value to us at that point. It's a shame I had been going there since about 1991. As far as I know this driver remained free to commit crimes against other women down the road. (And Im thankful that blade did not make it to him, It would have been a big big mess) Who knows.

Team driving with spouse is a very dynamic situation. 24/7 You take on what you can do to take the pressure or load off the other person's mind, spirit and body where possible. We are still a team to this day. That will be all the way till death even though we are divorced now. (That imposes certain limitations but we are ok with that totally considering the damage we endured during cancer and afterwards)

One day with a medicine load spouse told me that the trucking situation with food and the poor lifestyle is making her obese which in her family will generate a very short life indeed. She wanted out, absolutely quit.

A message to dispatch, came back accepting her quit and authorized her passenger status at that moment as a courtesy. So that the Law can see it if need be. She marked her logbook off duty/Quit at mile marker 112 TN I-40 and that was that for her employment. We are still heading to Detroit with medicines. So she spent the time with our Cat and decompressed there and back home.

My time to get out of trucking came along not long after. Medical issues were coming together and some of it needed surgery to start off removing problems, fixing damage and overall cutting and patching to start. For her she was able to avoid obesity and in general live pretty well. What we could not know then was cancer was already present and we would have to deal with the fallout really soon after. So her quitting at that time really worked out well.

It wont be the first time.

 

My brother and I, on the other hand, split our days on the 12's (noon and midnight). That gives each of us an equal shot at night versus day driving and deliveries and pickups (for solar powered customers).

One thing about splitting the day in equal 12 hour shifts is that you have 12 hours in the sleeper berth. You can't sleep all 12 hours, so I found that I was able to watch more movies, read books, or otherwise entertain myself than if I am running solo and TCB within a 10 hour break.

 

They way we did it was cheat like crazy on the logs.

 

We split our day at 2am/2pm PST .this way we can both have day and night drive time.

Whatever happens on our shift, happens. Goal 1300 miles a day. 100% drop and hook, no touch freight.

 

If both are agreeable to that system then it'll work if not then it won't and you'll need a new team mate.

 

I ran team for 4 years with over a million miles in that time. Partner and I ran on 12 hour shifts. 3am to 3pm works best because it is easier to stay up til 3am and waking up 3 am is not too early. This way, both drivers gets better sleep. If the grave guy needs sleep before 3am, he can just park the truck. Then the am guy starts at 3am.