What Is Your Company's Policy On 34 Hour Resets?

We got a message on our Facebook page from a driver and it said this:

May I ask you a question? I received message from my DM , I will send it to you, can she do this? Is this legal? I'm new to trucking and not sure if I understand 34 reset correctly. Thanks advise...

The dispatcher said:

In regards to 34 hour resets, those are earned and not just implied you get them. We run on recaps and I decide when it's necessary to take a 34 hour reset. I save those for home times, and it's a conversation that you need to have with me. If you have any questions.....

...the message was cut off at that point. It was a photo of a Qualcomm message and that's all that fit.

So my answer was this:

Yes, at many companies the dispatcher (or load planners) can decide when and if their drivers take a 34 hour reset. If they left it up to the drivers, the drivers would use them like mini vacations. Half of the fleet would be on 34 hour resets every time they got to Las Vegas or near a relative's house.

When your dispatcher says to give them a call and talk about something, definitely take advantage of that and have a good conversation. Just go into it open minded and try to learn all you can about how the operations run inside your company. Then you'll learn how to work within their system to squeeze out as many miles as you can get each week.

Remember, your dispatcher is on your side. They want you to turn as many miles as possible. You're a team, so make sure you learn how they do their job, what authority they have, and what they need from you so they can keep you rolling and get you home when it's time.

For any current drivers out there, I'm curious what your company's policy is on 34 hour resets. Do you get to take them whenever you like? Is it up to your dispatcher when you get one? Or is it a "give and take" kind of thing where you can request one if you like and sometimes dispatch will throw you a bone?

You can say what company you work for, or not. I really don't care about which companies have which policies. I'm just curious overall what the various policies are on the matter.

Thanks!

Maverick doesn't care as long as the freight is delivered on time and safely. Our miles and home time are dictated by how we run and how hard we work. Of course they want us to run hard but I've never had a dispatcher say anything regarding 34s. Up to me completely

Up to me completely

So if you were on a run and didn't have anything else scheduled after that, you would just be able to call dispatch and say, "Hey, I'm gonna take a 34 hour reset and chill out for a while. Push my PTA out to Thursday morning and I'll be ready to go then."

And they would just let you do that?

At Swift I've never specifically been told I couldn't take a 34. Some or many of the fleets here at Swift seem to have weekly minimum mileage goals. On the Miller Coors fleet it was 2500 miles/wk. As long as I met that minimum goal (and delivered on time of course), my dispatcher didn't care what I did. If I wanted a day off, all I had to do was call someone to push out my PTA (projected time of availability) out a day or two. On the Target fleet it's different because we're paid differently, but we can take a day off if we want--just ask our manager. On Costco fleet, same as Miller Coors fleet with a minimum mileage goal, but they wanted a couple days notice if you took a day off. Just plain otr reefer , I could take a 34 if I wanted to...it just didn't make sense to do it since I probably wouldn't make as much money.

Brett, I take a 34 almost on a weekly basis these days. Part of that is just the nature of my dedicated account that I am on and the routes that I am running in. I am allowed the liberty to pick and choose how I want to run my loads, and as long as my dispatcher has good solid communications from me about my delivery and availability times he leaves my preferences to me.

I can, and generally do, run a little over 3,000 miles in a week. I manage my time so that I am back to my dedicated customer in Delhi early on Saturdays. My next load will be loaded that day or on the following Sunday. I will usually be headed to some destination up in the Northeast and the delivery time allows me to get in my 34 hour reset if I choose.

We also don't usually have the luxury of being able to have another driver re-power a load for us since there are only fifteen drivers on this account and we are not usually anywhere close to each other. That presents a problem for the dispatcher which makes it easier for him to manage his drivers by making sure they have plenty of hours available by allowing them to "re-set" their seventy each week.

There are times when circumstances dictate that I run things a little differently, and during those times I will run on re-caps, but usually after a week of that my dispatcher will say, "let's get you in here in time this week to take a 34 and start off fresh again. I'm not aware of any company policy at Knight concerning 34 hour re-sets, but my situation is somewhat complicated in that my dispatcher has to keep our dedicated customer apprised each day as to how many drivers he will have available for them. When they consider that a driver is available, they consider him as being able to run as far as legally possible, and for their purposes that means ten or eleven hours of drive time. This dedicated position, and the contractual agreement between the companies, allows the customer to have some say in which drivers they are happy with and they can actually have a driver terminated if they don't like their performance.

You know how we always stress how important a driver's performance is. When serving on this particular account the customer has almost as much say as the dispatcher in whether you stay in here or not. We've had quite a few drivers who couldn't "cut the mustard" with the customer and they were either transferred to running dry-van with Knight or released altogether. If you can manage your clock well, you can do really good on this account and make some decent money, but you have got to stay on top of your game. Part of that dance is knowing how to get yourself back in to the plant so that you can get a reset in and still be able to deliver that next load on time.

I would read into that message that this particular dispatcher and/or company has experienced problems with drivers utilizing random 34's as a mini vacation (as Brett stated), or as an excuse to refuse loads. Also, the message didn't imply that the driver was expected to run illegally. I do, however, think that the message could have been worded a little more tactfully. Such as:

"If you have hours available and/or coming back on recap, you are expected to be available for loads. Otherwise, please call me to discuss the need for a reset."

When I pulled flatbeds for Prime, it was mostly about communicating with dispatch. When I ran as a company driver for them, they expected three to four weeks out before home time, but a couple of times I got a 34 in somewhere out on the road away from home because of the way the loads were planned. I would get close to the receiver on a Saturday, for example, and have more than 34 hours before I could deliver on Monday morning.

As a lease driver at Prime, theoretically I could take time off whenever I wanted just by letting them know, but in practice I tried to run harder than I did as a company driver because I always had a lease payment to make.

As a company driver at System, I was on a regional fleet. If I wanted, I could get home almost every weekend for a 34. (I was told to expect three out of four weekends during the summer, two out of four during the winter.) In practice, I tended to run about three weeks out, then a 34 at home, but that was because I requested longer runs. If I wanted, though, I could be home almost every weekend. They were also very accommodating when I had special requests a couple of times. One week I needed to be home every night and they made it happen.

Right now I am stuck at home recuperating from major surgery, but thankfully that three-month post-op date is getting closer every day. Less than a month to go! I feel like I won't need a 34 for the rest of 2017 once I get back in a truck, but I know that will change after I've been out for a few weeks. :-)

I usually get a reset in about once a week. It's just how the freight runs I pick up a load going about 700 miles on Friday park midday Saturday and deliver Monday morning. This just seams to be how flatbed runs. When I was a reefer driver the loads were longer and I hardly ever got a reset in. I average about 3000 to 3200 miles a week.

In my position with Schneider, I got five days off per month. It was up to me to manage that by letting them know when I wanted home time. If I chose to take a 34 within my away time, they let me do it as long as I delivered on time. I only did this a few times because I was running out of hours, but those days still counted against my five days per month.

If safety was an issue, Schneider allowed me to make the call as captain of my ship."

Thanks for all your work and helping us all.

Umm... I am a little confused. I don't mean to hijack the thread, but maybe someone can just give a quick answer. In The High Road portion of the website where you study for the permit written test, I was reading about logs and such and I thought you must take a 34 reset every 7 or eight days. Is this right? Is this something companies just expect you to ignore?