Downtime while OTR?

How hard are you planning to work and run. The rules are very simple. You can drive 11 hours within a 14 hour period. You can work longer than 4 hours, but no driving after the 14 hours, and no driving after 11 hours of actual driving. You have to take a 10 hour cumulative break/sleep period after the work period before you can restart the work period.

Much of this depends on who you work for, what you are assigned to do, and how hard you run and acomplish those tasks. I take the attitude that I am out on the truck to earn money, and you will almost always find me in one of two modes. Running or sleeping. I do very little otherwise. If I am not driving, doing paperwork,loading, or unloading, then I am most likely to be on my break, and sleeping. I save the major recreational activities for when I am at home. As of right now, I don't even have the internet when i am out on the road, since it might interfere with my sleep time.

I limit what I do in the truck to money aking activities, and it works for me. If you have slow time on the road, then maybe you could do a bit more work and pick up some extra money. Granted, when you first start, you will have more dead time because they will schedule longer blocks of time for you to do a specific task, based on your newness. But that fades away and you pick up more work and money after a bit when they get to know you and how you run.

Bottom line, if you have a lot of time, you won't be making enough.

 

what's downtime? All kidding aside, while I am out here, I run hard and work hard, never a spare minute, just enough to eat, sleep, walk the dog and drive. I was finished Tuesday afternoon in Chicago, all I had to do is drive home to St. Louis and I managed to hit a truck stop on I80 and went to sleep for 11 hours, to make up for almost 2 weeks of little sleep, and got into Stl almost 24 hours later the next day.

When my husband and I drove together, we did flatbedding for the most part, we always had extra time, now, driving reefer, I never do.

 

Realistically speaking, I know you will have some time, while waiting to load, or unload probably most days.

Unfortunately, you have to cram as much driving in your available hours, that often, when I stop at night, I have to make the decision.....sleep, or eat, or shower, because I am just too tired to do all.

I NEVER sit with my company. I am empty, and ready to roll in minutes again. I am sure with Swift you will have days, where you may sit around waiting for the next load.

Just take with you whatever you use, eg your laptop, and play it by ear. In all honesty, at first, when on your own, I don't think you will have the energy to do much, but once you are getting used to the long days, and settle in somewhat of a routine, I am sure you will find time.

Just wait until you are in your own truck. Good luck to you.

 

Oh, Logs, what would we do without you?
(answer, run illegal anyway and not feel bad about it!! JK, I love ya!)

To answer the question, Sabine is right: Bring your stuff along, but don't plan on using it a lot when you first start out. Once you get your own truck, and you fall into some sort of rythm, then you will be able to make time to write and play music. But it will come down to deciding whta you will be doing: With limited downtime (hopefully), you will have to prioritize. However, if you are doing a reset on the road, that can be great time to enjoy your hobby; just make sure to get enough rest before coming back on duty.

 

It always looks legal. Apart from that, I had about 4 days where I couldn't sleep to save my life. I slept just a couple of hours per night, no matter what I did, and that included Tylenol PM, I couldn't sleep.

I have been trying very hard to run legal. I ran out of my 70 leaving Chicago, sitting in traffic, but not by much, just a few minutes, since I didn't want to sit on the side of the road, I continued to the truck stop 20 miles down the road.

I don't advocate doing crazy things either, but if I didn't leave when I did, I would have been sitting in an industrial area, no food or anything until the next day. So I left.

 

some days im runnin down to the minute of me 11 hours.. and others like today i drove 80 miles and shut down again. im 300 miles form my destination.. and i aint gotta be there til the 15th. so im runnin a bit each day and takin alot of free time to jag around with.