Thanks for update. Your last sentence is the best omen of all. If you keep trying to learn something new, you will. And that attitude will carry you further than you can imagine!!
As for the HOS stuff, the elog makes things tough, especially in large urban areas. If you get caught in traffic and run over, do you put a notation in your log as well, explaining "Traffic disturbance, unable to safely park until current location" or something like that? If you get caught up in a log check three days later, it also helps to explain to the guy / gal in the unusual hat what was going on. They'll see the violation, and absent the "safe legal harbor" stuff, everything you say may or may not hold water if there's no contemporaneous notation.
That's how our log folks have told us to deal with those occasions.
Electronic Logbook
A device which records the amount of time a vehicle has been driven. If the vehicle is not being driven, the operator will manually input whether or not he/she is on duty or not.
Good to read your update. Keep plugging at it, learning each day, and moving forward.
One thing I read was really frightening. Don’t ever park on the side of the road. Take a HOS violation. If you’re delayed for mechanical issues or traffic tie ups, that can be explained because it’s beyond your control. If a motorist runs off the road and runs into your rig after you parked illegally, YOU are liable. Lawsuits are expensive and jury’s hate big trucks. Not worth that risk.
I couldn't get the Emergency supply line to stop leaking I connected and disconnected the gladhand four times before I found the sweet spot
When this happens to me i take a bit of grease off the tounge of my trailer with my finger and rub it around the outside of both glad hands and it seals right up.
Sounds like you are doing pretty well, for most part keep it up!
I couldn't get the Emergency supply line to stop leaking I connected and disconnected the gladhand four times before I found the sweet spotWhen this happens to me i take a bit of grease off the tounge of my trailer with my finger and rub it around the outside of both glad hands and it seals right up.
Sounds like you are doing pretty well, for most part keep it up!
Could also be another good time for my shameless plug for PB Blaster... Get a can and spray the seals. Keeps your hands or gloves clean for when you hop back in the truck. It also will help release the pins on the tandem or spray the track to help slide them. It'll fix almost everything but an HOS violation. "Try" and keep those down to a low monthly or bimonthly number. Gets easier with time. Then again your not exactly working in the easy area... So your doing just fine!
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
I take a thirty in the last half hour I’m at a shipper or consignee. This gives me 8 hours to get wherever. If your leaving someplace and 30 minutes later sitting in traffic sweating your 30 you got to get with the program. If you got loaded with 2 hours left on your clock in a big city location then you need to pray they got someplace onsite for you to take a ten. But wouldn’t it be nice if you could switch all that on duty loading to sleeper and take a 6 or 7
The customer the freight is being delivered to. Also referred to as "the receiver". The shipper is the customer that is shipping the goods, the consignee is the customer receiving the goods.
The customer who is shipping the freight. This is where the driver will pick up a load and then deliver it to the receiver or consignee.
I take a thirty in the last half hour I’m at a shipper or consignee. This gives me 8 hours to get wherever. If your leaving someplace and 30 minutes later sitting in traffic sweating your 30 you got to get with the program. If you got loaded with 2 hours left on your clock in a big city location then you need to pray they got someplace onsite for you to take a ten. But wouldn’t it be nice if you could switch all that on duty loading to sleeper and take a 6 or 7
It's not so much of losing drive time it's the HOS that's getting me. When I get to either the shipper or consignee I put myself in a a "On Duty status " either loading or unloading once I finish checking in I go on break and save my driving hours. Of course the drive clock stops but the HOS continues to run. So if I don't get a door right away and sit waiting when ever I get started back up again. What ever clock has the shortest amount of time left then that is what I get. In both situations I still had and hour and a half of driving time but my HOS was less. So that was the time I had to work with.
The customer the freight is being delivered to. Also referred to as "the receiver". The shipper is the customer that is shipping the goods, the consignee is the customer receiving the goods.
The customer who is shipping the freight. This is where the driver will pick up a load and then deliver it to the receiver or consignee.
Good to read your update. Keep plugging at it, learning each day, and moving forward.
One thing I read was really frightening. Don’t ever park on the side of the road. Take a HOS violation. If you’re delayed for mechanical issues or traffic tie ups, that can be explained because it’s beyond your control. If a motorist runs off the road and runs into your rig after you parked illegally, YOU are liable. Lawsuits are expensive and jury’s hate big trucks. Not worth that risk.
Agreed. I am never allowed to stop on the side of the toad, not even on an on ramp.
One of our drivers parked in a spot where there was at least 2 truck widths past the shoulder, so they were 15 to 20 feet off the road. A drunk woman hit them somehow and the company lost the lawsuit.
If I park on the toad and something happens I will he fired. Possibly even if nothing happens. they weren’t even happy when I broke down and parked on the side of an on ramp.
I take a thirty in the last half hour I’m at a shipper or consignee. This gives me 8 hours to get wherever. If your leaving someplace and 30 minutes later sitting in traffic sweating your 30 you got to get with the program. If you got loaded with 2 hours left on your clock in a big city location then you need to pray they got someplace onsite for you to take a ten. But wouldn’t it be nice if you could switch all that on duty loading to sleeper and take a 6 or 7
It's not so much of losing drive time it's the HOS that's getting me. When I get to either the shipper or consignee I put myself in a a "On Duty status " either loading or unloading once I finish checking in I go on break and save my driving hours. Of course the drive clock stops but the HOS continues to run. So if I don't get a door right away and sit waiting when ever I get started back up again. What ever clock has the shortest amount of time left then that is what I get. In both situations I still had and hour and a half of driving time but my HOS was less. So that was the time I had to work with.
Yeah, that 14 hour clock sucks. :)
The best change I could think of for HOS rules is to pause the 14 at shippers and consignees.
The customer the freight is being delivered to. Also referred to as "the receiver". The shipper is the customer that is shipping the goods, the consignee is the customer receiving the goods.
The customer who is shipping the freight. This is where the driver will pick up a load and then deliver it to the receiver or consignee.
Chris wrote...
...but as I was hooking up the empty trailer I couldn't get the Emergency supply line to stop leaking I connected and disconnected the gladhand four times before I found the sweet spot. I lost about 5 minutes of my time
Replace the black rubber gasket-seal in the offending glad hand. These things wear out, crack and become a point of failure.
Next time you visit your terminal , ask for about a half dozen of them. It’s an easy fix...
In the amount of time it takes to “hunt” for the sweet-spot, you could replace the worn one.
A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.
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It's been a while since I did and update on my progress. Well I just completed my 6th week of solo driving it's been educational to say the least. So far I've had two HOS violations the first one happened as I was pulling into a truck stop in McGraw, NY just as I pulled in my clock hit zero and Ms. Qualcomm started to scream at me while I was looking for a parking space. A quick message to the safety department explaining the situation resulted no further action or retraining. The second time I was two miles from the yard. I had just dropped off a load of cardboard at West Rock paper in Solvay, NY I had 35 minutes left enough time to drop, fill out paperwork and Hook up an empty trailer to bring back to the yard easy enough but as I was hooking up the empty trailer I couldn't get the Emergency supply line to stop leaking I connected and disconnected the gladhand four times before I found the sweet spot. I lost about 5 minutes of my time so now I have about 20 minutes to get to the yard long story short I got cought in slow traffic and ran out of time 2 miles short of the yard got to the yard and dropped the empty trailer I was about 15 minutes over. So another message to Safety explaining the situation and again nothing came of it. In situations like that it's good to have GPS on the trucks since it shows the actual position of the truck when you go into violation that I wasn't trying to BS them with my location. The very next day I almost got another situation where I almost went into HOS violation again I was back in New Jersey and got caught in a late afternoon traffic jam I lost about 45 minutes of time in the bumper to bumper traffic. I finally made it past the weight station on the north bound lane I just pulled over on the side of the highway and shut down. I wasn't going to have another HOS violation on two consecutive days. So park I did figured a ticket was better than getting another HOS violation. There were a couple of other drivers pulled over so I figured safety in numbers. As soon as my 10 hours was up I'd get back on the road I got lucky and I was not bothered. In both cases I still had ample driving time but getting delayed at either shipper or consignee burns up HOS. I swear every minute of real time is equal to 5:00 minutes of HOS time..., lol. I'm still working on time management this past week I had to pull into a open lot next to a Family Dollar in Preston, West Virginia after I had picked up a load of Charcoal from the Kingsford plant up the road. I actually got a call from my Manager because I went "Out of Route" heading to the Kingsford plant but that's another story for another time. The Irony is the load of Charcoal I just picked up was going to the Family Dollar DC at Rome, NY. So I figured if the Family Dollar manager gave me any grief I'd just tell him I had his charcoal in the back.., lol other than these couple of incidents it's been a good time I always try to learn something new every day.
Consignee:
The customer the freight is being delivered to. Also referred to as "the receiver". The shipper is the customer that is shipping the goods, the consignee is the customer receiving the goods.
Shipper:
The customer who is shipping the freight. This is where the driver will pick up a load and then deliver it to the receiver or consignee.
Qualcomm:
Omnitracs (a.k.a. Qualcomm) is a satellite-based messaging system with built-in GPS capabilities built by Qualcomm. It has a small computer screen and keyboard and is tied into the truck’s computer. It allows trucking companies to track where the driver is at, monitor the truck, and send and receive messages with the driver – similar to email.HOS:
Hours Of Service
HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.