Maxing Out Daily Hours Of Service

I have read a good bit of it. The part about cheating the logs kinda worries me. I do not want to cheat my logs, I just cannot see a few extra buck being worth the safety risk or the risk to the cdl

All you have to do is get on with a company that has electronic logs...which is almost all of the major companies nowadays anyhow. But keep in mind you can still run like 3,500 miles per week legally with electronic logs. That's a lot of long days.

Even back in the day when I ran paper logs I didn't cheat to get more miles per week. I cheated so that I could run when I wanted to and shut down when I wanted to on my own schedule. I still used to shoot for about 3,200 miles per week because any more than that and you're almost certainly going to burn out before too long. You have to keep a sustainable pace.

This industry is really for go-getters. You have to be really self-motivated and pretty disciplined to really excel at trucking. But most importantly you have to make smart decisions. You'll have control over that rig. Nobody can make you do anything against your better judgment.

I am sure I am over thinking things and freaking myself out :) thank you for the site and how encouraging you guys are here at this site.

Driving hard doesn't have to correlate with unsafe driving. You'll never catch me driving tired, at any hint I might start to get tired I do something to gather myself. I'll pull over for a nap if I have to but I typically know when I will need to rest after driving all day so I usually trip plan it in my schedule for the day before I hit the road. I've seen what happens when you drive Fatigued and its just as bad as Drunk Driving. I saw a Owner Operator which I will take a guess and say he was probably on paper logs but we came to a sudden stop at US95 into Winnemuca the other week and he was tired and didn't get on his brakes fast enough or not at all and hit a May Truck. It was a bad wreck and it all happened right behind me.

I am regional so I bump more docks than the otr folks which means more time sitting and more time ticking away. I just started elogs a little over a month ago and find myself pushing it often in order to pick up or deliver on time. I have already had to request three safe haven moves and have pulled into truck stops with 1 minute left on the clock. I would love to go back to paper as I cannot control the loads I am assigned and how long I sit at dock.

I have already had to request three safe haven moves and have pulled into truck stops with 1 minute left on the clock

That is what's really annoying about the way e-logs are setup. No tolerance. There's no reason they couldn't put more flexibility into the electronic system. You shouldn't have to panic thinking you're going to be fined or fired because you got stuck in traffic and parked 10 minutes past the deadline. That's dumb. Geez! That's why I loved paper logs - flexibility. Getting 3,200 miles a week was fine by me. I didn't want any more than that really. But running those miles is soooo much nicer when you can do it any way you see fit.

I have already had to request three safe haven moves and have pulled into truck stops with 1 minute left on the clock

That is what's really annoying about the way e-logs are setup. No tolerance. There's no reason they couldn't put more flexibility into the electronic system. You shouldn't have to panic thinking you're going to be fined or fired because you got stuck in traffic and parked 10 minutes past the deadline. That's dumb. Geez! That's why I loved paper logs - flexibility. Getting 3,200 miles a week was fine by me. I didn't want any more than that really. But running those miles is soooo much nicer when you can do it any way you see fit.

Just thinking on the math of it.... How do you get 600 miles in a day when the truck tops out at 62-65??? That means you average 60 miles an hour, how is that done??? (sorry if its a sill question, not at the hours section in high road yet)

I have already had to request three safe haven moves and have pulled into truck stops with 1 minute left on the clock

That is what's really annoying about the way e-logs are setup. No tolerance. There's no reason they couldn't put more flexibility into the electronic system. You shouldn't have to panic thinking you're going to be fined or fired because you got stuck in traffic and parked 10 minutes past the deadline. That's dumb. Geez! That's why I loved paper logs - flexibility. Getting 3,200 miles a week was fine by me. I didn't want any more than that really. But running those miles is soooo much nicer when you can do it any way you see fit.

AMEN! My stress level is peaked daily now. How can this be safer? I know that really does not matter, someone is banking $$.

Just thinking on the math of it.... How do you get 600 miles in a day when the truck tops out at 62-65??? That means you average 60 miles an hour, how is that done??? (sorry if its a sill question, not at the hours section in high road yet)

You have 11 hours to drive in a 14 hour period after each 10 hour break, so: 11 * 60 = 660. That, of course, depends on staying within your 14 hours.

I have already had to request three safe haven moves and have pulled into truck stops with 1 minute left on the clock

That is what's really annoying about the way e-logs are setup. No tolerance. There's no reason they couldn't put more flexibility into the electronic system. You shouldn't have to panic thinking you're going to be fined or fired because you got stuck in traffic and parked 10 minutes past the deadline. That's dumb. Geez! That's why I loved paper logs - flexibility. Getting 3,200 miles a week was fine by me. I didn't want any more than that really. But running those miles is soooo much nicer when you can do it any way you see fit.

Just thinking on the math of it.... How do you get 600 miles in a day when the truck tops out at 62-65??? That means you average 60 miles an hour, how is that done??? (sorry if its a sill question, not at the hours section in high road yet)

Well its like this, some trucks are faster than others and once you hit the freeway you put that sucker on cruise at max speed. I can do 600 miles driving 10hrs easy and some days are better than others. If I get the chance to I'll go downhill as fast as can, Safely of course. I've been able to log 600 miles only driving 9hrs sometimes. What sucks is those slow Prime trucks have to drive almost 11 hours just to log what I can do in 9 hours and them O/O's blow my doors off all the time. Its quite funny!

If you want to drive steadily for 3 to 4 weeks at a time, you need to keep your 70 clock use at 8:45 per day. Then take off 15 minutes for pre-trip and 5 minutes for fueling, that leaves 8:25 for driving. My truck is governed at 63 and I pull a flatbed which requires several stops to check the load, so I average 57 mph during my driving time. So my average, max miles per day is 484. That gets you 3388 miles max in a week.

That's for a good day of driving only. The miles really drop when you have two stops and need to un-tarp and unstrap, then re-strap and re-tarp the load at each stop. I really enjoy days with no load, I need to get to the next load and have extra hours saved from slow days. I have managed 648 miles in a day.

What sucks is those slow Prime trucks have to drive almost 11 hours just to log what I can do in 9 hours and them O/O's blow my doors off all the time. Its quite funny!

Yeah, sorry about that... LOL

Some times you just have to move along when you are on a tight schedule like I was last week and need to turn and burn in 3 days instead of four so you can get all the loads delivered on time.