Tanker Toughts

That's some crazy stuff you LTL guys are talking about. My dispatcher always sees my hours. He will occasionally call and ask me something like this, "I see you have been bumping up against your 70 each day this week. Can you manage to get this load going to Vermont there by Wednesday?"

He's always aware of how I'm managing my time.

Every company operates differently, but universally, companies care about following regulations and safety. If you tell your dispatcher "I won't be able to get to Vermont by Wednesday" they're not going to say "we don't care about HOS , just get there".

That's some crazy stuff you LTL guys are talking about. My dispatcher always sees my hours. He will occasionally call and ask me something like this, "I see you have been bumping up against your 70 each day this week. Can you manage to get this load going to Vermont there by Wednesday?"

He's always aware of how I'm managing my time.

Remember, there can be dozens of drivers arriving at or near the same time from a number of terminals and meet points. A dispatcher at a large/hub terminal seeing a couple hundred drivers a day each with 2 trailers coming in and needing to find them 2 trailers out. They simply leave it up to the driver to track and advise of his or her individual time.

That's some crazy stuff you LTL guys are talking about. My dispatcher always sees my hours. He will occasionally call and ask me something like this, "I see you have been bumping up against your 70 each day this week. Can you manage to get this load going to Vermont there by Wednesday?"

He's always aware of how I'm managing my time.

Remember, there can be dozens of drivers arriving at or near the same time from a number of terminals and meet points. A dispatcher at a large/hub terminal seeing a couple hundred drivers a day each with 2 trailers coming in and needing to find them 2 trailers out. They simply leave it up to the driver to track and advise of his or her individual time.

Yes, in my case this day my run was a "special" run (special purpose, special needs - take your pick) so not one that they normally have in the system. Basically a piece of freight needed to be somewhere that afternoon and it was "forgotten" on our dock. My boss made arrangements for me to deliver that freight, along with additional freight, to one center but Central Dispatch would only let him do it if I could via MORE freight from that center to my destination. In other words they were not going to let us do this run for only one piece of freight. Makes sense.

Two things worked against me: One - this was July 3d and my via took me out towards the coast so I spent a HUGE amount of time in beach traffic. Normally the run to this center is done at night so the time allotted takes into account very little traffic. This was the first thing that worked against me to NOT finish this run on my 14hr clock.

Second was my breakdown. I sat for 2.5 hours until roadside finished my repair.

Throw in waiting for my trailers and it was not going to happen.

Clocked in one day at 9am. Got drafted 30min later to do a run with a via.

Got to the via, swapped trailers and continued to my destination. While enroute, my truck broke down. Finally got to my destination at 2200 hours.

Trailers weren't ready. Finally at 2230 the dispatch at this center hands me my paperwork. The paperwork indicated that the run was about 4.5 hours long. So I was expected to arrive 18 hours after I had started my day.

I told the center dispatch I couldn't do it. There was no way I would have time. They could have cared less. They shrugged their shoulders and it was "deal with it".

So I called our Central Dispatch and told them what was going on. At first Central said, "Well go as far as you can and then call if you think you won't make it."

What??

I said, "Look, I CAN'T WORK 18 HOURS!!" Why send me on my run WHEN WE BOTH KNOW I WON'T MAKE IT??!!"

They finally relented and put me in a hotel for the night.

That's surprising. That's never been my experience with central dispatch. I've dealt with that with dispatchers in buildings when I say I can't do something, but then I just step outside and call Central and they make the necessary changes.

Yup. I was surprised too. Usually they are very accomodating and it was quite easy to see from the getgo that was not going to have the hours that day to get back to my home center.

Not sure if my post posted at all so lets try again...

Through the first month, and a half here my thoughts about bynum. This company is kind of weird. Upper management doesn't like to introduce themselves. Not sure if its a southern thing or not. The dispatchers don't seem to care at all about HOS. So far for the first month and a half of the year I've driven 14,900ish miles. The dispatchers seem to be making good on their promise that If I give them 3 weeks they'll give me 3 days. Some time in April insurance should kick in which is a good thing. I think after really thinking long and hard about it...I'm going to look at getting my hazmat endorsement. The problem Minnesota expects you to make an appointment. So I'm going to wait until I get residency setup in Georgia.

just my very early thoughts on bynum.

take care everyone

How are things going, Benny?

Been awhile since you've been up & on here!

~ Anne ~

Very informative and useful article for beginners!