Why 10, why not 5 or 3 hours?

You're a real rebel there, scout. Good luck with your career.

 

With all due respect this may be taken out of context a little bit. Most of this talk is in response of the OP posting about driving 3 hours then sleep for 3 hours with a constant repetition. Getting 3 hours of sleep won't allow you to get to the point of sleep that you actually get the most beneficial type rest. It may be OK the first 3 or 4 times you do it but not for a straight week. Maybe I'm different, I don't fall asleep immediately. So if I had 3 hours. The first 30 min would be trying to get to sleep. Then you can't just roll out of bed to the drivers seat. There's a wake up process. So say another 30 min. We're only then talking a true 2 hours of sleep.

Any and all studies will be skewed to the finding of what they want it to be. One week chocolate is bad in a study the next it's good in another. Coffee too. Bad studies and good studies. Nothing is concrete. It's all wack. People are different. They all react different.

We can complain about the HOS all day. It is what it is. Same thing with ELOGS. Same thing with automatic transmissions. There really is nothing we can do to change where the industry is going. Complain all you want. Government restriction is going to get tighter and tougher. And taxes are going to go up. That's the only guarantees I can make in life.

 

I like the end.

"Think a little bit..... do not sleep"

Hahaha

 

We used to not have a 14 hour rule, and instead had a 15 hour rule. Not only was it an hour longer, but it stopped any time you weren't on line 3 or 4. That's right, it was a 15 hour clock that ONLY counted "on duty" time. Stop for dinner? Clock stopped. Need a nap? Clock stopped. Granted, we could only drive 10 hours back then, but only required an 8 hour break...which could be split between 2 periods of any length greater than 2 hours.

Funny thing is, bus drivers hauling people (arguably the most valuable and irreplaceable commodity) still follow the old rules. The "new" rules only affect those hauling property.

 

Its 11 hrs driving which you should know.What may work for you doesn't work for others.

 

I am not deceiving anyone have you ever had to go to a house and inform a family that someone fell asleep and struck their spouses car and the spouse did not make it. How many posts are on here about drivers driving sleepy and involved in a crash? Even with the 10 they still don't know when! My point is made very clearly.

 

Considering fatigue manifests itself with physical symptoms, with a guide book, it would be pretty easy to pick out a fatigued driver from a group of drivers. When I'm tired driving my four-wheeler to the point where I know I shouldn't be but have to because I want to get home, it would almost be to the point where I would be better off being well-rested and drunk behind the wheel.

Drivers with elogs are being forced out onto the road when tired. Now with that anti-coercion law, it might improve, but I doubt it (it's hard to prove without a recorded conversation that there was coercion, and even then you need that person's consent in many states).

Not letting drivers drive when they are able to drive is taking trucking into the toilet for skilled drivers. In 10 years there will be nothing but steering wheel holders left, making the case for automated trucks so much stronger.

Hell, I'm starting to believe all this regulation in the trucking industry is literally a conspiracy of big business in the US pushing for their expensive tech to be legally mandated for the sake of profiteering. The more and more they bring in, and the more and more these "laws" are being so strictly enforced by the DOT suggests to me safety isn't even a concern at all. It's all about who's pocket in government has been greased enough to make it happen.

 

That's the truth. Be careful what you wish for comes to mind when they talk about ensuring HOS compliance through e-logs and other monitoring. While they may succeed in getting all drivers to be compliant it comes with a cost.

As they dumb it down and take responsibility away from the driver to make good decisions they attract less to the profession who can make good decisions and more who will follow the electronic prompt.

Look at the now infamous crash with the Walmart driver who was perfectly legal with the exception of
§ 392.3: Ill or fatigued operator. Technology can't enforce that rule, only responsible drivers can.

https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/newsroom/...mprove-efficiency-safety-commercial-bus-truck

They expect to prevent 20 fatalities! And how many more Walmart crashed will there be? Prevent 20 but create how many more?

https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/safety/data-and-statistics/large-truck-and-bus-crash-facts-2012
https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/sites/fmcsa.dot.gov/files/docs/Trends-tbl1-2012.xls

Roughly 4000 thousand people die in large truck and bus crashes each year. E-logs (strict HOS compliance) are expected to prevent one half of one percent of those crashes while at the same time creating an unknown number of them due to people deciding they must drive because the machine says they can. It's not about safety.

 

These drivers have been up for 24 or more hours which they forced themselves to drive tired.Those types of drivers aren't going to drive 3 off 3 hrs.They'll just keep driving to full exhaustion if they don't crash first.If the Op feels more refreshed with his pattern great but every driver is different.Me I use to drive so many miles then take a 15 minute brake and it worked out great for me.

 

The Elog thing was a long time comin. I blame all of us, including myself, for letting the govt push us around.