Violated My Hours Of Service Yesterday

Here's my HOS experience at Swift. Like Paul, there's never an argument about time when you are running out. (The DM can see your electronic time clocks.)

I am assigned a load, and I know I could not make the delivery. I messaged my DM, but she asked me to pick it up. Now some may understand our messages to say "Never mind, go get & deliver the load." Well, I did pick it up, but as my time ran out, I pulled into a truck stop, and messaged my DM that I was done because my driving time was up. What happened next? My DM sent me a message: a driver would bobtail to my truck stop and take the trailer. Nothing was said after that, I never felt "punished" or had to talk to anybody about my explanation.

I appreciate the replies. Old School, maybe I didn't get the intention of it, but reading through that truth in trucking book that is posted here on this site, chapter 10, the section on DOT alluded me to thinking that that was the norm in the trucking industry. Basically that by running over, it's better for everyone. As was quoted "everyone wins when you cheat your log book". That may not be the exact wording, but it was the general idea.

Basically, reading through that chapter is part of what got me curious about this, and concerned, which is why I had to ask.

Is fudging logs common in the industry? I'd say yes, overwhelmingly. But not in the way you might think. Technically, all time spent at a shipper/receiver is supposed to be logged as on-duty time unless you are completely relieved of duty (and most of the time you aren't). For a typical driver, actually following this rule would eat up your 70 in a record amount of time. I usually spend about 15-30 min. on duty at a customer, regardless of how long I'm there.

I've spent over 24 hours at a shipper before waiting for a live load, and was not allowed to leave. According to the FMCSA that 24 hours should have been logged as on-duty, which is beyond ridiculous. Any driver who claims they would have logged it as on-duty is either incredibly naive or a liar. I make money when I'm making miles, and not any other time. I'm not going to waste my clock not being paid.

thanks, i kind of figured that, in todays trucking world, it would be more difficult to fudge logs, and with all the CSA stuff, it would make it not worth the risk. That and, more and more trucking companies are going to electronic logs anyway.

I totally understand the going off duty while waiting to be loaded/unloaded. If you had to stay on duty for those times, you'd get so little done, but this really only works if you are there for at least 10 hours, correct? Since going off duty doesn't extend your duty day, in other words, if you have 3 hours driving for the day, and went off duty for 4 hours, you'd still come back on with only 7 hours of drive time left, since you'd only have 7 hours left of your duty day. Am I thinking of this right? You can drive 11 hours in a 14 hour day, and going off duty doesn't extend your duty day.

The only thing I can think where this would help you is the 8/2 rule, where you can split your 10 hours off up into 2 different periods by doing 2 hours off at one point, then doing the other 8 hours off at another point, but the 8 hours off has to be in the sleeper berth , or at least that's the way I recall.

Granted, none of this may apply to OTR , im so used to being under the oilfield exemption, 11/14 and 24 hour reset, OTR drivers are on a 10 hour or 11 hour drive time per day? and they have a 36 hour reset? is that correct?

This brings me to another question also, one that was never fully explained to me. Someone was telling me there is a way to drive every day and never have to shut down. It sounded a little fishy to me, so I wanted to see if this guy was telling me correct, or mistaken. The basic idea of it (and it's been awhile since ive heard this, so it may be slightly off), but, as long as you don't go over 70 hours in 8 days, you can keep on rolling. For example, something like this:

Day Drive time: mon. 10 tue. 10 wed. 10 thurs. 10 fri. 10 sat. 10 Sun. 8 ------- -------- 7 days 68 hours

so, at this point, you have driven 7 days for a total of 68 hours. When the 8th day comes up, which would be Monday, the previous Monday falls off, essentially meaning that on the next Monday, you are back down to 58 hours, and then you can do this:

Monday, you are back down to 58 hours, so you drive for 10 hours, putting you to 68 again, but since you havent actually hit 70 in an 8 day period, then tuesday, you are back down to 58, and can drive for another 10 hours, and on and on.

Again, since you never hit 70 in a 8 day period, you just keep going, on the 8th day, the previous 1st day falls off.

Again, I thought this sounded a little odd, because it could mean that you could drive every single day and never take a reset, but they were telling me this is how OTR works.

Again, I may have gotten my info wrong, it may have been the 70 hour 6 day rule, im not 100% sure, but, does this sound even remotely correct?

Oh this is a fun and interesting conversation! I'd like to retitle this "The more things change, the more things stay the same":

So it started with a quote from my book:

As was quoted "everyone wins when you cheat your log book". That may not be the exact wording, but it was the general idea.

That is almost exactly the wording. And that was true back then and it still is today.

Then C.S. was totally right on:

Been a while since I've read Brett's book, but as I recall that chapter is specifically referring to paper logs, which are much easier to "cheat" than e-logs. Brett has also stated numerous times that he didn't fudge his logs in order to run a ridiculous number of hours every week as some drivers did/do, but rather to make things more convenient for him and get the rest he needed.

Every word of that is correct. I used to cheat with the paper logs so that I could drive when it made sense to drive and park it when it made sense to park it. I didn't have to worry about my 14 hour clock ticking away when dealing with customers and breakdowns and taking naps and all that, either. I hate the 14 hour rule.

But I used to shoot for about 3,000 - 3,200 miles per week consistently. That was a good balance of a lot of hard work, a solid paycheck, and enough rest and downtime to enjoy yourself out there. So I wasn't cheating the logs to run 5,000 miles a week. I just wanted to run when I wanted to and park it when I wanted to. I knew enough to make the right decision about that. I didn't need an artificial clock. My thinking was like:

"Just give me the job you need me to do and leave me alone. I'll give you a call if something doesn't go according to plan. Otherwise I'm fine and it'll get done safely and on time."

So this conversation really gets fun when Old School says:

Okay, that book was written from a different time era. Things are totally different in today's climate. Brett wrote that book, and he drove before we had electronic logs. Everybody today is pretty much on the same page with running legal, or they will be very soon!

But Old School also said:

My final delivery was really tight and I had to run over my legal drive time by about twenty minutes to make it happen

So you cheated the logs after all Mr "Brett's From Another Era"? And what did dispatch say?

"Awesome job, I saw what you did to make that happen [ in other words, cheated!]. This is the stuff that I love about how you operate. You take care of business, you don't bother me asking questions with the details, you just get things done. Thanks alot."

So you cheated and everyone wins! LoL! Just like I said it was in the early 90's. When you're a savvy driver and you know how to get things done you get a wink and a nod when you have to go above and beyond what most drivers would do (or can do legally) and that will never change. Whatever you can do to keep those wheels turning and the customers happy.

And then C.S. says:

Is fudging logs common in the industry? I'd say yes, overwhelmingly.

See? Has trucking changed? Nope. You guys are still cheating the logs and everyone is winning when you get away with it. It's not what we teach people to do because it's risky and illegal of course.

But it's a decision every driver makes on a regular basis and I was always one to take my chances. Most of the time it worked out, once in a great while it didn't, but that was just how you played the game.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Trucking hasn't changed much at all in a very long time.

Most of the time when you go off duty at a shipper/receiver it's to save hours on your 70. And yes you can drive every day running on recaps. If you average around 9 hours a day.

Most of the time when you go off duty at a shipper/receiver it's to save hours on your 70. And yes you can drive every day running on recaps. If you average around 9 hours a day.

wow, then that is something (provided i can get on with a company) that I will definately have to learn, however, im going to assume that in the OTR world, that really doesnt apply, since you'll be driving your 11 hours most every day anyway, correct? In which case, you just try to save hours where you can, but, at the end, you'll end up hitting your 70 hours each week and having to shut down?

Your load will dictate how you run. Days that you deliver and reload may be days that you don't drive as much because of time you spend at shipper/receivers. Some loads will require you run out your 11 to get it done. Some loads will have enough time you will have more flexibility on how you run it. It's kind of a learn as you go process. Nice thing about electronic logs is it will tell you how much time you have left, and what you get back at midnight if you're running on recaps.

This is interesting, and Brett is exactly right - savvy veterans bend the rules here and there while their happy dispatchers look the other way. It really doesn't matter which era you're driving in.

We don't encourage folks to cheat, and I didn't want to give you the impression that you will be pressured to cheat because you won't. But top tier drivers know how to get things done, and sometimes that means not being so caught up with keeping the letter of the law.

What kind of penalty is there for missing the 30 minute break? We have 6 hours and 45 min to make it to a critical load appt but are still 7 hours away and we need fuel. We were running on time but had to make a shop stop for hub seals and we lost three hours there. (Next time we're at an England terminal we'll be picking up seals and oil to keep on hand so we can do it ourselves.)

It seems to me that if you lost three hours at the terminal , then you've already taken your thirty minute break. I'm probably missing something.

It seems to me that if you lost three hours at the terminal , then you've already taken your thirty minute break. I'm probably missing something.

No, we switched just before we pulled out of the TA shop because I ran out of hours. He had already ran a couple hours before I submitted the question, so he needed to take his 30 before we would have arrived at our first drop. Moot question now as we are already here, but apparently he had to stop anyway because Detroit Diesel told road service that our engine needed a regen ASAP...but our engine failed to tell us that.