Driving Over Allowed Hours

I'm somewhat in your neighborhood, staying in Oakland CA tonight. Tough to cross paths with you these days. I'm doing intermodal now, mostly Oregon and Washington. Glad to see you back here at TT.

Chris I'm happy to see you're still alive.

Long time no see my good friend!

Yeah I rarely ever get out of Sacramento. This job is as local as local can possibly be. I did get to go to NV last week which was pretty cool. In 1.5 years doing this I have went to the Bay area twice, NV three times and nothing further South than Stockton and nothing further North than Yuba City. Haha!

ELOGS will soon become mandatory and for those who think that a rep congress and senate will repeal it? reality check it was passed under a rep controlled senate and congress and they have no intention of repealing it....... the insurance companies who are some of their biggest financers believe that this will help them with their liability claims

Thanks for the replies!

Also know that the drivers will be the one hurt the most, so tread carefully.

Susan, that's what bothers me the most. Most of his drivers are immigrants. They are legal, but most have inadequate English, and I think that's one of the reasons he's able to push them to break the law, they are afraid they'll get fired and won't be able to get another job. So, if I can do anything, I want to do it against his company, and not single out a single driver or truck. How do I contact the DOT? I tried their website, but the option they provide asks for my name and phone number. Thanks again!

Here's what ya do: under first name, put down Anonymous. Under last name put down Driver. Under phone number put down (000)-000-0000. That will get around their requirements.

Back 20 years ago, you could actually nap like that, when your body said you needed a rest. The HOS regs were much more reasonable than they are now, imo

I was travelling yesterday so I couldn't respond to this until now.

I completely agree. For like 400 years the logbook rules had remained the same, and I thought they were perfect. Basically 10 on, 8 off, with a very simple split sleeper berth option. It was perfect. It allowed you to legally turn 3,200 or so miles per week, which in my opinion is about the max a person can do safely and consistently over time, and yet allowed enough flexibility that you could run when it made sense to run, and park it when it made sense to park it.

Maybe you're extra tired that day or not feeling well so you need a long nap. Maybe the shipper took 3 hours to load you and you slept the whole time so now you're totally refreshed and ready to go. Maybe traffic getting out of Chicago at 5:30 pm is awful so a two hour nap would be perfect.

I honestly can not even believe that 14 hour rule exists. It really makes me angry. "Sleep experts" say it's critical to get 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I don't think I do that three times a year. I sleep in shorter stretches, maybe 4 - 5 hours at night, and a one or two hour nap during the day.

And the whole reason that normal 9 to 5 jobs revolve around eight hour workdays and 40 hour work weeks is because it has been demonstrated time and again that after so many hours at a stretch the mind and body wear down. You simply can't remain alert for long stretches at a time, day in and day out.

It seems incredible to me that the "sleep experts" got their way with this. Where the hell were the "work experts" who actually have difficult, stressful jobs putting in long hours???

Have any of these sleep experts ever worked a tough job? Have they ever had a job that requires being under life or death type of circumstances requiring high levels of constant focus for 11 hours at a stretch with barely a break along the way? Have the ever had to push hard for very long stretches every single day regardless of what their body tells them or what makes sense for that particular job?

Obviously not.

Seriously, I would love to take a sleep expert on the road and push him hard 11 hours a day on the East or West Coast for 6 straight days and see how he does. Go down a bunch of huge mountains in the wintertime, cruise through a bunch of big cities, and keep up with a tight schedule for weeks and months at a time. They would crumble. They would be crying in their white lab coats by the third day.