70 hour rule

so many question here lol. simple answer to the first part is 8.75 hours a day ad infinitum is not driving, but rather must include all on duty time. you must log a pretrip OR a post trip each day, and if you are on paper logs i believe it must be 15 minutes. same for fueling, though you can combine fueling with your pre or post trip. thus you can limit all "on duty not driving" time to pre (or post) trip and loading/unloading. the way i learned it i was told you had to show 15 minutes for each visit to a shipper or a receiver for loading or unloading time. the rest of the time can be shown as "off duty" or "sleeper berth" time. so averaging 8-8.25 hours of actual driving per day is do-able.
i most always found it better, while conserving as much "on duty" time as i could for actual driving (combining fuel; with pretrip, showing minimum loading/unloading time), to run out the hours as quickly as i could with whatever loads were assigned to me, then using the 34 hour restart. so on long hauls, i always use up the maximum on duty time, rather than trying to mess around with 8.75 hours per day. as an otr driver, you can hurt yourself financially by trying to keep it at 8.75 hours per day...every day you are not utilizing 2.25 hours you could be, and you STILL may end up sitting for an extended period of time waiting for a load, or waiting to be loaded/unloaded. i say use up all the hours you possibly can if you are otr, giving you the maximum opportunity to make money while away from home.

 

Before the 34 hr restart rule , I would burn through my hours as fast as I could logging everything.so by day six I was at home 2 days every week..

 

Poker pretty much explained it best. To run indefinitely you wanna be on duty an average of 8.75 hrs/day...but you actuay get more miles driving 11 hours a day and taking a restart after the 6th day. I do this a lot when I head west to CA from MS. I run a dedicated route there and I know when I can be there, get empty, and be back home. Takes me 3 days to get there, and deliver to 2-3 stores on that day. Leaving on Sunday, I make my first deliveries by Tuesday, and finish on Wednesday and start heading back...usually making it to Barstow CA or close. Drive Thursday and Friday...34 hour...then leave Sunday and get home Monday. If I used the 8.75 hr rule, I'd get there Wednesday and probably leave on Friday then get back on Monday still. Or possibly Tuesday because I'd be worried about my hours to get home on. But I also get paid for taking a restart...soooo...

 

Wouldn't it be a whole lot easier if the Department of transportation would just have a simple rule as this?

Rest 10 hours and do as you need to do with the remaining 14 hours, whether it is driving, unloading trailers, etc..

 

That'd be to easy. Honestly, I say if you're tired...pull over. If you feel lime driving, keepa trucking.

 

Sounds like you want to take away government jobs !

 

Thats what happens when you place a bureaucrat in charge of a dept. that he/she knows absolutely nothing about...does the word Benghazi mean anything to you...........

 

It's not just driving that sucks up your time and saps your energy (and patience). A 14 hour day with only 7-8 hours driving, maybe an hour UNPAID time 'on duty-not driving', mixed in with real world wasted time at shippers, and receivers...(that you don't show on your logs) is a LONG DAY. Do those 5-6 days in a row, or worse, work all week only driving 5-6 hours a day, but being tied up for a full 14 hour day....and see how much you like trucking...and hate the nasty DOT rules.


It's very possible to burn up your 14 hour work period and make very little money, but you're worn out...and maybe still have to wait an hour for a #### shower at a crowded truckstop you had to circle an hour to get a parking spot at, and ended up between a loud reefer unit, and a smelly cattle hauler, both of whom will be screaming into a leeeeeeeneeeeeaaaarr all night to talk to each other, and bleeding over on the electric toothbrush in your sleeper.

 

How would they make any money if they aren't writing log violation tickets.