Comments By Kerry L.

It is a split sleeper rule and 6 hours in sleeper OR Off duty WILL pause your 14 hour clock if the "will pair" check is marked. This is new as of September 2020 and some experienced drivers are still not familiar with it.

So if you stopped at the customer with 5 hours of drive time available, sat in sleeper OR off duty for 6 hours... You could still drive out with 5 hours available. Then you would need to do at least 7 hours in sleeper and it that point you would get 6 hours back.

11 hours minus the time you drove between the 2 breaks is the drive time you get after the 2 breaks.

ANY amount of time longer than 2 hours will pause the 14 clock as long as "will pair" is checked. However... You MUST follow the next break with a corresponding minimum. So if you take 2 hours off... You must do at least 8 sleeper next. If you take 3+ hours off... You must take at least 7 sleeper next. You can check the will pair Nd pause the 14, but if you dont do the sleeper next you will violate.

Yeah, that's definitely not how my trainer is explaining it. Thank you very much for the explanation. Much appreciated.

Thats odd about the sleeper berth issue. Is there confusion on split berth? Meaning perhaps he just isnt communicating that it will move your 14 hour clock or pause it so to speak after 2/3 with 7/8 following, or does he think anytime you hit sleeper berth, no matter how short, it pauses it?

It certainly is possible that I am misunderstanding him, but he basically told me to always change my status to sleeper berth if I am doing anything other than fueling or pre-trip. He said that this preserves my 14-hour clock. He couldn't understand why this didn't happen when we were detained at a receiver for 6 hours. He expected that I would still have that time available on my 14-hour clock.

I have 0 complaints about my trainer because I am learning what I personally need to learn. I fully understand how to utilize my clock, so that's not really a concern. I am sufficient at trip planning, so I have no concerns that he doesn't like to do trip planning.

My driving, backing, and the ELD are the things where I really need the work and these are areas where my trainer is excellent. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I was put with him to be trained.

Can you trip plan while in sleeper? If they are not short runs?

Yes, I can. I actually did that earlier this morning before going to sleep when we stopped.

Alright, so my trainer and I got back to the Dutch Maid terminal without further issue at like 2 am. I slept in the top bunk as he pulled us in. At some point after that, he crashed out. We didn't have another load planned for us because of the tire issue, so trainer let me sleep without waking me up. I finally got up at around 12:00. After showering and eating, trainer called into dispatch to get our next load assignment. There is a trailer at the terminal needing to be taken to Streetsboro, OH drop yard. Then dispatcher suggests a load going from Streetsboro, OH to Lewiston, ME with a delivery time about 36 hours later. My trainer wanted to decline it at first, but then I think he realizes that this would be good experience for me.

Streetsboro drop load is taken care of, then pick up the load to Lewiston, ME. I still have about 9 hours of drive time left, so I am ready to hit it. I drive 3:00 then 3 minute break. I use this opportunity to show my trainer that going "sleeper berth" does not stop a 14-hour clock once started. He always tells me to go sleeper berth with anything other than fueling and pre-trip. I do as I am told. But, I wanted my trainer to be able to see that he doesn't have the correct understanding of what logging time in the sleeper berth does. When break was over, I logged into "on-duty." I showed him on the graph on ELD how much time I had left of my 14-hour on-duty time before the break and after. 14-hour clock didn't stop simply because I was logged into sleeper. He still doesn't believe me. I feel like I need to talk to the training manager at Dutch Maid because my trainer is giving every driver he trains this same misinformation about sleeper berth time, no natter how short, stopping 14-hour clock.

Anyway, back on the road and driving. After the break, trainer decides to take a nap. I thought the nap became full on sleep in his bunk. With 1:30 left of ny drive time, he asks if I am tired. "I am good." Well, I found out that he wasn't sleeping. He awoke from his nap and wanted to see how I would drive without me knowing that he is paying attention. He told me that he saw me doing everything that I should be doing for the conditions.

Trainer is already talking about the last few hours if my training being teaming. He told me that usually trainees/trainers get one run out to California and that if I continue progressing, we may be able to start teaming soon enough to get two runs out to California.

So, I make the decision that I want to keep running until I get within 30 minutes of my clock expiration. Wrong decision. At this point, I am on I-84 having just entered Connecticut. It is 01:30. We had just past the only truck stop that can be reached with my clock. That truck stop was probably full anyway. No rest areas along this section of I-84 where I am driving. I find a place to pull over so that my trainer can get us to a place to park. Find a rest area a few miles north of route 322. Completely full, so trainer parks along entrance ramp to the highway. Here is the real problem:

My trainer will not allow me to take the time to trip plan and determine where we will stop. If I try trip planning, he gets belligerent and aggressive. I just go with what he says because it's not my truck and he is the trainer.

360 more miles to drive tomorrow. We'll see how things go in not being allowed to trip plan anything.

Or option 4... Ask them to look for a load that delivers fairly close to your home so that you can get to the house easier and be ready to roll Monday morning. As Turtle said, no they don't have to pay you for the weekend to sit away from home.

Laura

OK but do you see my logic behind my original question, I drive back-and-forth to the yard. It’s five hours each way. So I’ve got 10 hours vested if I go home. Not to mention it’s about $200 round-trip in my truck plus gas. So let’s say I have them dispatch me from close to my home which I can do. I show up at the yard on a Saturday morning per the way they assigned me my loads. Say it’s 10 AM. I have eight hours left to drive on my clock. 35 hours left for the week. I go into the office and they tell me they don’t have a load. At that point in my opinion they have two choices. Send me a dispatch to go home in their truck, or pay me to sit on their yard. Otherwise I’m literally a prisoner stuck at that yard with no transportation, no way to make money, and I’m at their disposal. I don’t know where you all come from but where I come from that is not fair. Lol that’s like slavery type stuff.

Call me ignorant, but I am wondering how it is that you are running hard and remaining with half of your 70 on Saturday? If you start on Monday and run hard until Friday night/Saturday morning, I don't see how you still have 35 hours remaining. That's only working 7 hours each day, which means that might only be driving 5-1/2 hours each day. I might not know a lot of things, but I don't think any of the regular experienced drivers would call that running hard. Sounds pretty soft to me.

I have a real problem with you talking about this being like slavery. No dude. You chose to work for a company where the terminal is 5 hours from your house. No one but you chose this place of employment for YOU. Don't like it? Find another place to work.

That’s pretty harsh original poster, most companies will give you a rookie mistake as long as it’s not something severe. Squishing a little tree in a parking lot would not be considered severe in my opinion. Unless you’re leaving something out. No I was fortunate enough not to have a rookie mistake, but I did make some bonehead things happen my first few weeks, (driving where a truck has no business driving, turning down a frontage road that had a dead end in the middle of the night thinking I was going on the freeway) silly things like that. My company just laughed about it.

Honestly what you need to do is find an empty parking lot with some cones and over a couple of weeks back that truck in every which way you can possibly imagine. You’ll get the feel for it. And remember something else. Never have too much pride to get out and look. Never. At the end of the day if you don’t smash into anything you keep driving. Who cares what anyone else thinks. Your job is to keep that truck / trailer from touching anything.

The first year I was OTR I got out and looked all the time. If I was not 1000% sure about the cab door I came for a quick peek. Now I only have to do it maybe once a month or so. But I’ll still do it. I don’t know what’s back there I look.

Well, that little tree got stuck between drive tandems, if I remember correctly, so it's possible that it caused significant damage to the truck. Also, if the company had documentation that OP had been struggling in other areas, then that little tree is much more than just a little tree.

We put out our triangles and prepare ourselves to wait on road side service. Well, because of the way the truck was acting, the company has decided to tow the vehicle in, rather than sending road side service to fix a tire that may or may not get the truck running again. So, spending the night on US-224 near Ruggles, OH.

Trainer told me that we were probably going to get towed in. Ended up having a new tire put on right on the side of the road, which is what I had expected.

It's getting real for me now.

After being unloaded in Syracuse, NY, I drive to the location of our next pickup: West Seneca, NY. On the way there, my trainer is trying to figure out why I have so little time left to drive.

On the way to our pickup, I get lost a bit and end up going down a narrow road that leads to a "no trucks" road. I pull over before getting to the "no trucks" road when a firefighter pulls over to ask if I am lost, to which I say yes. He says, "Well, you are committed now," and then explains how to get to the road we need. I didn't realize yet that the road I was on led to a "no trucks" road. Thankfully I am able to get to the address without being pulled over.

When we arrive at the location in West Seneca, NY, trainer is looking at my hours on ELD. It is my 14-hour clock that is almost out. I remind him that I went on duty at 01:30 to back the trailer into the dock to be unloaded. He responded that I then set the ELD to sleeper berth. I then reminded him that this doesn't stop the 14-hour clock (6 hours in sleeper berth status. My trainer is convinced that anytime the ELD is put in sleeper berth that this stops the 14-hour clock. I have a hell of a time backing the trailer into the dock at this location. I end up getting help from my trainer and another trucker who has been on the road for 34 years. My trainer has told me that he wants me to use a ball attached to the steering wheel to steer. The other trucker told him that is a big mistake because it is causing me to oversteer.

I didn't argue and just accepted that it was not going to be a battle worth fighting. After being loaded in West Seneca, NY, trainer leaves ít up to me to decide whether or not to drive out the remaining 48 minutes of my clock. I decide to make use of the time to get as much drive time in as I can. We are headed to Bedford Heights, OH. Oh, up to this point, trainer is giving me stern instruction on my turns (rightfully so) and to my surprise he compliments me that they are improving.

We stop at a service center on I-90 at mile marker 447 to switch driving. When we arrive in Bedford Heights, OH to drop our load, I realize something quite troubling: my trainer doesn't know what to do when his GPS isn't reliable. GPS takes us to the physical address listed for the consignee. There is a sign indicating that trucks are to enter from a different street. My trainer is using his trucker GPS to try to figure out how to get to the entrance for trucks. I am able to find the street on Google Maps and use his atlas to verify that there are no restricted roads about which to be concerned. I have to provide him with point-by-point directions to get him to this location.

Well, the consignee informs us that this is a live load for the next morning, even though the load information provided us by Dutch Maid indicated that it is a drop and hook. After several minutes, dispatch tells us to drop the load at a drop yard a few miles away. Trailer dropped, we are then given instruction on picking up a load, which will be dropped at the Dutch Maid terminal. Another driver is bringing a load to Dutch Maid for us to pick up and deliver. It is a 3-stop load going to Michigan.

On the way to Dutch Maid, trainer says that I should be getting hours back soon to be able to run the load to Michigan. I tell him that I am exhausted and haven't really slept. His driving is such that I would never consider getting in the top bunk while he moves us down the road. Nope, no thank you. It's like he wants to team the loads, but I am still trying to learn some very basic things. He then says that we can get a little bit of sleep at Dutch Maid, he will run the first two deliveries for the Michigan load and then I can do the last. I agree that it will work. To my surprise, my trainer is talking to his wife a bit later about his trainee and mentioning how well I am doing. Apparently, he has had some bad trainees. He mentions about the Michigan load and that I am just not there yet in being able to run hard like that (which I believe is totally accurate).

Well, 15 miles from the Dutch Maid terminal, the truck begins shutting down as all kinds of warnings pop up. Tractor won't pull at all. This is my trainer driving because I am still out of hours at this point. He calls the shop and they have him do a couple of troubleshooting steps. Still not working. He decides to get out because he said it feels like the trailer is being dragged. Well, we have one of the tractor super single tires completely GONE. It's just the rim with no tire at all. I don't know a lot about these things, but doesn't it require driving quite a distance to lose the ENTIRE tire?

We put out our triangles and prepare ourselves to wait on road side service. Well, because of the way the truck was acting, the company has decided to tow the vehicle in, rather than sending road side service to fix a tire that may or may not get the truck running again. So, spending the night on US-224 near Ruggles, OH.

I went through Schneider orientation as a new driver back in 2015. To say you only get one week of training is not true. All together it’s a three week course.

The first week you are assigned a road instructor and drive with him for several hours a day. The day is mixed with class room work and training on the pad.

Week two you are out with a trainer. Trainer cannot be on the phone or in the sleeper. You do all the driving. Week three is back with the road instructor. At the end you test out with a safety manager. If they feel you are not ready you are not going solo but will redo the orientation.

After that I did another week with a mentor and had to again test out with a safety manager from the account I was assigned to. So technically yes you are with a “trainer “for only a week. It’s much more than that.

The comment about one week of training is when someone brought up the company TransAm. I am sorry for that confusion.

Hi All

I am new to driving and on class 2. I am driving light pallet loads in a hard body vehicle. Do I actually need add a strap internally or does the lightness of the load and the hard body mean I do not need to?

Depends on the driving. I've never had anything fall or move in the van/reefer, first time actually reading a question about such thing as strapping a load inside the van. Unless it is some kind of awkward bulgy unstable thing, but then it supposed to be secured on the pallet itself.

Loads can shift. Should have load locks and/or straps to secure the load. Doesn't matter if the load is secured to pallets. Pallets can slide around inside a truck.