Having Fun With Your Logs

I want to thank both Turtle and Chief Brody for providing some push-back in this conversation. They made us all think a little deeper. I clearly made a mistake when I claimed you only get 70 hours no matter how you slice the pie. Thanks guys for speaking up. I appreciate it.

We may disagree on what's the best approach for rookies, but really I'm splitting hairs. It's the rookie's choice to decide what's best for them.

I'm gonna go hit the road. I've got another great load hooked to my tractor, and it's time for me to roll.

Interesting, I learn much. The problem I have may be inside my head. Usually what tends to happen is that I'll end up with a reset because of a load issue or weather plus, maybe even a few days. I then feel really awkward taking home time right after a reset, and if I don't hold the load planners through my DM to it, they will just bypass my home time. It also just kills my productivity bonus and is killing my relationship. I don't have a solution yet.

That's a different situation entirely, Davy. Those are the variables that Old School and I both speak of, and agree on. Only you can decide what to do in that situation. A driver's eye should always be trained on production, but you have to balance that with hometime. Totally understandable.

In no way am I advocating taking a reset willy-nilly simply for the sake of resetting your hours. In fact, when conditions forced me into a recap schedule, I would ride that schedule out as long as it took, only going back to resets when the opportunity presented itself, usually when sitting on a load and waiting for Monday morning delivery.

I too want to thank the participants in this robust, lively, and comprehensive discussion. These conversations are always fun, yet vital for the dissemination of valuable info to new drivers.

Here is what I would like to know more about. I try to run out most of my clock out every day. Yesterday, I drove 676 miles and parked with just 27 minutes left on my clock. I had 10:33 of drive/on duty time. As my 8 day calendar rolls around, I will get 10:33 back on my clock as a recap. So, the more I drive, the more time I get back. A 34 hour reset rarely comes around. I thought a driver had to average 8.75 hours a day to avoid a 34 hr reset. But here I am driving out my clock every day and never reaching the 70 hr. limit. Don’t get me wrong, I can take a 34 hr break whenever I want to or need to. The company is good with that. But I keep getting enough time back that I can just keep going like the energizer bunny.

I thought the HOS rules were implemented to require drivers to take a 34 hr break, but it seems totally the opposite in my case. What am I missing here?

The simple answer is you cannot continue to run those hours every day indefinitely. You will burn up your 70 before reaching the recap hours, which begin on day 9.

The 70 is a fixed amount. Each day's on-duty hours take away from that amount. The 8.75 hours is just an average spread out over the 8-day week.

8 x 8.75 = 70 hours.

So that 10:53 from yesterday won't come back to you as a recap until next Sunday. If you amass more than 70 before reaching next Sunday, guess what? You're sitting until you get that recap back.

However, long days coupled with short days can keep you safe from burning up your hours. For example: if you did 10:53 yesterday, and only 6:37 today, that's the same as doing two 8.75 days. Pairing long days with short days in this manner will allow you to keep going, as long as you don't hit 70 hours.

Bruce,

If you're trying to leverage the advantage of the reset, you need to run, as Old School says, "balls to the wall."

With an average of 10.5 hours driving and 1 hour on-duty driving each day, you will have you'll have 67 hours of your 70-hour clock complete in 6 days. You could drive the 3 hour balance on your 70-hour clock on the seventh day. But, it's better to take a 34-hour reset and then get the "bonus 11/14." You would start that 8th day with a fresh 70-hour clock, and a full 11/14. And running this way, requires cooperation from my FM and load planners. As I had mentioned in this thread before, I usually get a "weekend" load on Friday when I have about 25 hours remaining on my 70-hour clock. My weekend load length varies between 1,000 and 2,000 miles. So, after I pick up my weekend load on Friday, I usually drive about 600 miles Friday and then 600 miles Saturday. If the load is only 1,200 miles, I'll get to the truck stop closest to my receiver on Saturday night, and then deliver first thing Monday morning. If the load is longer than 1,200 miles, I'll get as far as I can Saturday, and then finish the trip on Monday.

Even if you don't substantially complete your 70-hour clock in 6 days, let's say 7 days, you still will have completed 70 hours in 8 days: the same as a recap driver. This is the situation I'm in right now. I covered two short loads for my FM as a favor this last week, so I finished my 70-hour clock on my 7th day. So I'm taking my 34-hour reset on my 8th day. I couldn't have driven today anyway because I won't get my hours back until midnight. Plus, I might as well take the 34-hour reset because I will get a fresh 70-hour clock and a full 11/14 tomorrow. I just don't get that "bonus" 11/14.

If it don't complete your 70-hour clock until your 8th day, then you're essentially running recaps.

This week was unusual because it took me 7 days to complete my 70-hour clock. This load I'm on is 1,500 miles and I had only 13 hours on my 70-hour clock when I picked up this load on Friday. But, that was exactly what I needed to take a 34-hour reset at my house. I had 17 minutes on my 70-hour clock when I parked near my house. But because of the holiday, I don't deliver until Tuesday. I will drive about 600 miles tomorrow and then finish the trip on Tuesday, delivering about 0900.

Then it's rinse, repeat until I get my next weekend load on Friday.

Interesting, I learn much. The problem I have may be inside my head. Usually what tends to happen is that I'll end up with a reset because of a load issue or weather plus, maybe even a few days. I then feel really awkward taking home time right after a reset, and if I don't hold the load planners through my DM to it, they will just bypass my home time. It also just kills my productivity bonus and is killing my relationship. I don't have a solution yet.

Davey, whenever I schedule my home time I usually inform my FM that I'm flexible as to the dates. And I also usually schedule my home time to coordinate when I would normally take a reset. So, if I'm taking 3 days of home time one day of that would normally be the reset. Thus, if I finish a load early and I'm close to home I'll start my home early. But if I'm not able to deliver the load until the first day of my home time, I will deliver the load and then just come back a day later than I had originally scheduled. If I have appointments coming up on home time I usually schedule them the second day of my home time so that allows me the flexibility to use that first day to deliver my final load.

And at Prime, the FM's performance is based in part on the loaded percentage of that FM's trucks. So, the greater percentage that FM's trucks are loaded the more money he makes.

So often times my fleet manager will try to have me under a load when I take home time. Thus, instead of getting my weekend load on Friday I may get an 800 mile weekend load on Wednesday that takes me by the house. I'll take Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off and then still be able to deliver the load on Monday.

Then after I deliver on Monday, I get a 1,200 mile load that I deliver by Wednesday close the business, I actually have 2,000 miles on that paycheck even taking 4 days off. And my fleet manager for the week that I took off has a truck that's been 100% under a load and covered 2000 miles in a week that the driver took 4 days off.

Let me share my endless recap experience in the union LTL world to cover another area of this discussion. As I said early in this conversation, we run on a 7 day/ 60 hr clock, no reset over weekend. Our daily clock is the same 11/14 but we cannot maximize all that time because we would burn most of our clock up by Thursday and have to stay on the dock Friday. It is essential that we get out everyday so our days are set up to be 11-12 hr shifts.

I run city as well as utility to the main terminal in Carlisle. My day starts at 4pm with either yard moves, dock work or a city run pickup/delivery, sometimes all 3. I take lunch around 8-8:30pm to satisfy my required 30 min break. I leave for the main terminal between 9-10pm. Need 5-1/2-6 hrs to complete the trip there and back.

Since my shift splits calendar days, I get recap hrs back every day at midnight so I don’t have to worry about hrs till Friday night into Saturday. I try to keep my 1st 4 days to a max of 11:30 hrs each week so I have a full 14 going into my last day just in case I run into any problems. I am the last person at my terminal for the week and would have to call my manager at home, in the middle of the night if I ran out of hrs and needed to be rescued. Don’t wanna be that guy. Any leftover hrs from the week are there for Monday in addition to your recaps from The previous Monday.

Couple side notes…. If I was to switch bids and get a day shift, I might have to take off that 1st Monday to set up my recaps going forward depending on the previous weeks hrs. I usually start my week with 9-11 hrs available which may not be enough to complete the Monday runs.

The only time our clock completely resets is if you take a week vacation. Upon return to work that next Monday you would have your full 60hr clock available.

This is what my typical HOS week looks like. Available hrs for tomorrow is 11:21, wouldn’t fit in screenshot

The simple answer is you cannot continue to run those hours every day indefinitely. You will burn up your 70 before reaching the recap hours, which begin on day 9.

The 70 is a fixed amount. Each day's on-duty hours take away from that amount. The 8.75 hours is just an average spread out over the 8-day week.

8 x 8.75 = 70 hours.

So that 10:53 from yesterday won't come back to you as a recap until next Sunday. If you amass more than 70 before reaching next Sunday, guess what? You're sitting until you get that recap back.

However, long days coupled with short days can keep you safe from burning up your hours. For example: if you did 10:53 yesterday, and only 6:37 today, that's the same as doing two 8.75 days. Pairing long days with short days in this manner will allow you to keep going, as long as you don't hit 70 hours.

Thanks Turtle, your explanation makes perfect sense to me. That’s exactly why I can keep going, because of the shorter days mixed in.

Delco do you have any idea why they run on 60/7 and don't allow a reset even though legally you satisfied the 34 hour requirement? I'm assuming it's in the contract to prevent drivers from working too much but I'd be annoyed. You bid routes for what you want to do, allow me to do it without worrying about having the hours to do it all 5 days. The only requirement to run on 70/8 as opposed to 60/7 is that the carrier must have atleast 1 CMV on the road 7 days a week.