Night Trucking?
Topic 10768 | Page 1
If whichever company gives you enough time to be flexible, which is highly unlikely, then you can always drive at night. I prefer to be a moon-chaser myself since there's no traffic and always a parking spot.
Really though, it will never be consistent. You will have to switch your sleeping hours around quite a bit.
Just a basic question about trucking at night. At my current job I work overnights from time to time and I really enjoy it, the job involves a lot of driving but it's not trucks, and doesn't involve freight. Anyways. I always see a lot of trucks out on the highway at night and I know that a lot of people prefer to drive at night. Is this more of a choice for OTR drivers? When I and if I become an OTR driver as I hope, will I be able to do most of my driving at night or is that more up to the company? Just curious.
As long as you make your appointments, you can drive whenever you like. My favorite schedule is to start at around 1am, then stop after noon. After noon you can have your choice of spots in any truck stop lot.
OTR:
Over The Road
OTR driving normally means you'll be hauling freight to various customers throughout your company's hauling region. It often entails being gone from home for two to three weeks at a time.
A lot of the trucks you see at night are team trucks... The only time we shut down is waiting for a load.,..when I drive solo I'll try to start my day as early as I can so I can shut down before parking spots get full..
The problem with setting your own schedule is the logbook rules. Not only are you limited when it comes to how many total hours you can drive, but you're limited to doing it within a certain time frame - 14 hours. If you could drive 11 hours anytime you like, instead of boxing it into a 14 hour period the way the logbook rules are written, then you would have a lot more flexibility.
So you can indeed drive on any schedule you'd like as long as you can make your appointments on time and do it legally by the logbook.
Logbook:
A written or electronic record of a driver's duty status which must be maintained at all times. The driver records the amount of time spent driving, on-duty not driving, in the sleeper berth, or off duty. The enforcement of the Hours Of Service Rules (HOS) are based upon the entries put in a driver's logbook.
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Just a basic question about trucking at night. At my current job I work overnights from time to time and I really enjoy it, the job involves a lot of driving but it's not trucks, and doesn't involve freight. Anyways. I always see a lot of trucks out on the highway at night and I know that a lot of people prefer to drive at night. Is this more of a choice for OTR drivers? When I and if I become an OTR driver as I hope, will I be able to do most of my driving at night or is that more up to the company? Just curious.
OTR:
Over The Road
OTR driving normally means you'll be hauling freight to various customers throughout your company's hauling region. It often entails being gone from home for two to three weeks at a time.