Best Driving Schedule To Maximize Miles

Newbie here. Looking for tips on how to maximize the most miles to cut down that 70/8 34 hr restart?

Is 11 driving and 10 off the best if possible? I say if, because I know sometimes pickup or dropoff wait times will mess things up. But overall I'd like to hear from those of you out there what you do to maximize your time out and miles.

Did a search and found a cpl blogs loosely related, but found no actual forum post on this subject. If I missed it sorry.

Thanks in advance for the info!

Newbie here. Looking for tips on how to maximize the most miles to cut down that 70/8 34 hr restart?

Is 11 driving and 10 off the best if possible? I say if, because I know sometimes pickup or dropoff wait times will mess things up. But overall I'd like to hear from those of you out there what you do to maximize your time out and miles.

Did a search and found a cpl blogs loosely related, but found no actual forum post on this subject. If I missed it sorry.

Thanks in advance for the info!

If you want to do restarts a lot then yeah 11 on 10 off works good but if you want to run recaps and not worry about the 34 he restart then you only want to drive 8 hrs a day.

Keep in mind - the 70 hour clock is Driving AND On Duty/Not Driving. Remember how your clock works. Once you start your pre-trip - your 14 clock starts. Time behind the wheel driving, is your 11 hour drive clock.

Which is why folks spend as much time as they LEGALLY CAN at shippers/receivers off duty or sleeper. On Duty/Not Driving counts towards your 70.

The reality is - you drive as efficiently as possible, according to your distance/delivery schedule. Arriving late to save on your clock, is not practical.

As Jake says - if your routing allows you to spend 8 behind the wheel (plus another 1/2 hour for On Duty/Not Driving for pre/post trip), and you can pull that off - you might not have to re-set quite as often. Keep in mind, fueling/etc., is all On Duty time.

The object is to burn as little of your clock as possible, and still be safe and on time.

Rick

Newbie here. Looking for tips on how to maximize the most miles to cut down that 70/8 34 hr restart?

Is 11 driving and 10 off the best if possible? I say if, because I know sometimes pickup or dropoff wait times will mess things up. But overall I'd like to hear from those of you out there what you do to maximize your time out and miles.

Did a search and found a cpl blogs loosely related, but found no actual forum post on this subject. If I missed it sorry.

Thanks in advance for the info!

Steven when you first start with a company, you will likely be on a trainers truck anywhere from 4-6 weeks once you obtain your CDL. Part of that process is to learn proper clock management skills. What I try to get across to new drivers is limit the amount of time wasted; limit the amount of unnecessary time on-duty/not driving, getting lost, looking for truck stops to park for the night and being mindful of delivery appointments, etc. All of this is part of the trip-planning process, again something that your trainer/mentor should review with you for every trip. Something you will learn as you go...and get better at with experience.

The advice about not running more than 8 hours to limit the resets is fine as long as it aligns with your delivery appointments. Again, falls back to trip-planning.

Good luck.

Thanks for the replys. I only have a newbies grasp of the 11/14 hr clock. I do understand all work time counts against the 14, and that sleeper time puts that on hold and 10 resets it to your last break start? Haven't quite figured out how that works yet. Studying some of the examples on the High Road, but it's kind of hard to grasp without actually doing it. I'm more of one of those learn by doing types.

Having been a math teacher I can give you a thought picture.

First off, the eight days thing. Think the last week is seven of those days, but you have day #8 which is what you're doing today so far.

Imagine a big box that has eight bowls in it. You have 70 beans (= 70 hours).

You can put anything up to 11 beans into any bowl. The extremes are:

* 6 bowls with 11 beans each plus a bowl with 4 beans and an empty one <- a day off.

* All 8 bowls get 8 (total 64) plus you have six beans to spread around. Actually you put 3/4 bean in each bowl - 8-3/4.

However you work this "game", just use as many beans/hours you can.

Really, though, it's your choice how to do your days, as long as your freight gets delivered. My choice had been to drive 9-10 hours a day and get a day off every once in a while.

I run Atlanta Chattanooga Nashville a lot and one tip that works well is to time your transits through big cities late at night if possible or at least in off traffic times. I will stop short sometimes just so I can hit Atlanta at 1:00. The best way to get miles and not burn up your hours is to be running not sitting in stop and go traffic.

Newbie here. Looking for tips on how to maximize the most miles to cut down that 70/8 34 hr restart?

Is 11 driving and 10 off the best if possible? I say if, because I know sometimes pickup or dropoff wait times will mess things up. But overall I'd like to hear from those of you out there what you do to maximize your time out and miles.

Did a search and found a cpl blogs loosely related, but found no actual forum post on this subject. If I missed it sorry.

Thanks in advance for the info!

Steven when you first start with a company, you will likely be on a trainers truck anywhere from 4-6 weeks once you obtain your CDL. Part of that process is to learn proper clock management skills. What I try to get across to new drivers is limit the amount of time wasted; limit the amount of unnecessary time on-duty/not driving, getting lost, looking for truck stops to park for the night and being mindful of delivery appointments, etc. All of this is part of the trip-planning process, again something that your trainer/mentor should review with you for every trip. Something you will learn as you go...and get better at with experience.

The advice about not running more than 8 hours to limit the resets is fine as long as it aligns with your delivery appointments. Again, falls back to trip-planning.

Good luck.

Unless the trainer uses you as their personal cruise control

My schedule tends to be somewhat irregular in the sense that sometimes I'll have consecutive 1000+ mile runs, and other times I'll be sitting for half a day or longer waiting for a reload, only to get a short haul. So because of that, I've found that the best thing to do is to simply try and maximize my hours each day.

So if I have the miles to run, I'll get in as close to 11 hours of driving as I can each day. When I don't have the miles, I just drive until I arrive. This allows me to get more loads in each week because I usually make deliveries earlier than expected, and then when things slow down, I don't feel like I'm sitting wasting hours.

This also means that when I run recaps, I'll get more hours back sooner.

For example, say I have 1000 miles to drive on a load (about 17 driving hours). I could split it up evenly by doing 500 miles each day (or about 8.5 hours). But what I like to do instead is max out my hours on the first day (about 700 miles) then take it easy on day 2.

Either way, I've used the same amount of hours off my 70, but the difference shows up 8 days later: instead of getting back 9 hours from the first day (8.5 plus fuel/pre-trip), I'll get back 11.5 hours, which gives me more leeway to run longer if I need to. If I use them all that day then great, but if not, the remainder still rolls over to the next day and I can use them then. So instead of waiting until that second day to get back those extra couple of hours, I get them back a day earlier, and sometimes that makes all the difference.

The other thing is that you have to use at least 15 minutes each day for your pre-trip, so for each extra day it takes you to complete a run, that's an extra 15 minutes off your 70. But if you drive 11 hours each day, that's a lower "pre-trip per load" ratio, which means more time available to drive within your 70. Does that make sense?

Hi Steven, I too am studying log book. Some pretty confusion, I see me making a lot of mistakes. Have you decided on a school? I'm planning on Drumright in May. Twenty three days and 95% placement. No pre-hire , all want me in school or with cdl. You have a much better selection than I. I appear to be to far off the beaten path.

Good luck!