My 10 Hour Rookie Mistake

So no split sleeper option and no personal conveyance for company drivers...?

That IS dumb.

One of their recruiters called me this past Monday at 0730 MST, right after I'd been asleep for three hours. Yeah, sign me up!

But Schneider did give me a nice hat and free pens

I got two pens and NO free hats!

Bruce, Whenever you have to do the ‘ELD creep,’ put it in manual, and shift into first gear. That makes it much easier to keep your speed under five mph.

Just wait, there’s more to come!! By the end of your first year, you should have received two free shirts and a pair of boots! Yeah baby!!

Bruce, I agree with some others, that really is dumb not to allow PC or split. Those are both extremely useful tools in this trade. Not allowing their use is like making a carpenter build you a house but not letting him use a hammer or saw.

As for messing up a break, don't worry so much about it. It's nothing more than a minor irritant, happens to most of us at one time or another. I screwed the pooch 14 hours into a 34 last week myself. Went shopping on a Saturday, got distracted at the store and forgot to hit PC. It moved into drive for a few seconds but thats all it took. My company can fix that on a weekday but the log department isn't in on weekends. It sucks but we've all done it at least once in our careers.

Oh hell no ! lol Was times I didn't get much sleep bouncing around in bed due to bad roads etc. So my drive shift sometimes 2am-4am I got too tired to continue, I'd pull over and take a 1-2 hour nap feel refreshed, and continue on....Those wee hour times your body is telling you "Hey you should be asleep" lol Safety etc never had a problem with it, besides I know my limits, and ain't running off road because I got tired and couldn't keep my eyes open. So I did use split sleeper a few times.

And was few times, doing my 30 minute break, and jumped the gun, with 1 minute left, and dang truck went into drive mode. Sometimes, I retook my 30, others, I just got back on the road, and took my 30 later. I didn't get those 700+ mile drives in by wasting time at truck stops fueling etc, my best was a 723 mile drive cycle , only broke 700+ 4 times, in 2 years, and yeah had less than 10 minutes on my clock.

Getting back to our Riverside terminal , at the guard gate, I had 2 minutes, got parked just as time clicked off after I set the brakes whewwww !