To 34 Or Not To 34, That Is The Question!

Been listening to road dog on xm and from what I gather, there is a motion that is being presented to do away with the 34 hour restart. Just wondering what your thoughts on that are?

I don't think it will take away the availability of doing a 34 hour restart, just take away the requirement to do one.

Some of the drivers I've heard say that you actually can run more miles doing a 34 as opposed to running on recaps. Is this true?

I can see where it would be, because if you are running in recaps and you have a couple of days where you are only getting back 4 or 5 hours, it would limit the amount you can run, and having done the restart would give you more hours.

The thing is, if you are getting back 10 or more hours each day, that's almost a full clock of drive time. You'd only be losing about an hour of driving each day maybe an hour and a half due to pre trip time being added in.

Is it worth it at that point to do a restart or just keep rolling recaps?

I guess the question I'm asking is, when do you decide to do a 34 and when do you decide to run recaps?

In a perfect world, you can be on duty 8.75 hrs per day and run forever. In reality, you will usually have some short and long recap hours coming back. You just need to see if those short days fit your pre plan to get back to a long one. The furthest ive ever made it on recaps is 9 or 10 days. Get hit with 4 or 5 hours coming back at midnight a nd end up taking a 34. Always look ahead several days and see what kind of hours you will start making up. I've found it to be somewhat of a balancing act. I seem to run better miles by reseting my 70. Just more flexibility.

When the opportunity presents itself to get a reset while under a load, I will do my best to get the 34. If I can run 11 hour days for two days and reset, I jump on the opportunity. That usually has to be done before you are on recap. The biggest problem, for me, is I try really hard to not run to close to zero. Having nine hours on your 70 doesn't mean you can drive nine hours. You have to allow for traffic, construction and other possible delays. If you start with nine; drive for eight and a half and the next place to park is 40 miles away, it ain't gonna work.

This is a very good question. It all depends. Like me , I get my miles by doing reset every week.

Im OTR but run East Coast to West Coast. I don't do recap unless Im just gonna stay in the East.

Like last week. I started friday I took a load going to Idaho then Oregon to Washington , back to Oregon to swap then heading to Seattle,WA again. Theres no other way for me to run to west to make my appointment if I do recap unless the place is 24hrs drop and hook. All of my load in West are all Live load and they normally close during business hrs. In east I run recap coz its more drop and hook. Chasing midnight is not a problem , plus having a reset is a big benefit to me coz I run hard every weekdays..By doing reset every weekend it gives me time to have a good rest for working straight weekdays, clean my truck , do laundry and chill so I dont get burn out. I didn't even bother doing time off , all I did since I went trucking is reset every weekend nd im all good.

The "motion" (or ISSUE) with the 34-hour restart is that - a few years ago, FMCSA decided that the 34 hour restart had to occur during two periods of between 1-5 AM, and you could only use it once every 7 days.

Congress SUSPENDED the 1-5AM/once every 7 days provision - pending a study by FMSCA that was supposed to be presented to show these (ridiculous) provisions improved driver safety (which they did not).

Unfortunately - the way this was written into the highway bill, has been interpreted to mean that if the FMCSA didn't present the study/justification in a timely fashion - the 34 Hour Restart WOULD GO AWAY ALL TOGETHER.

This wasn't the intent of congress, and they just haven't gotten around to correcting it.

Under the CURRENT RULE - you can do a 34 hour restart WHENEVER YOU WANT (doesn't need to be between 2 periods of 1-5AM) and however often you want.

Both of these provisions were DUMB. 34 hours off, is 34 hours off - FMCSA was trying to make drivers SLEEP during the wee hours of the morning, two nights in a row. The problem with THAT IS - many drivers DRIVE DARKNESS HOURS. Resetting their circadian rhythm actually SCREWS WITH their body clock, and can make them drowsy during night driving hours until they re-acclimate.

Making you ONLY TAKE ONE RESET in a 7 day period, was also kinda dumb. The 11/14/70 hour clocks still dictate HOS. If your work/home/downtime schedule happens out so that you get TWO RESETS in one week - SO BE IT. If you come off hometime, and then end up sitting waiting for a load somewhere on the road for more than 34 hours of off duty time - there's NO REASON WHY you shouldn't be able to reset your 70 clock to zero again, instead of waiting for another 4 days to get that time back on re-caps.

Both the these provisions were DUMB BEYOND BELIEF, which is why congress suspended them (proving they are capable of doing something intelligent once in a great while). Where they went back to their usual ineptitude, was when they didn't provide for what happened to the 34 Hour Rule ITSELF - should FMCSA fail to comply with producing the study (which they did not - as in - didn't produce the study).

-----

As far as SHOULD YOU TAKE A RESET - if you've run your clock SO FAR DOWN, that you only get a couple of hours the next day(s) to drive (on recaps) - YOU SHOULD DO A RESET. If you cannot effectively run the miles you need to run (500-600 a day) on the re-caps hours your have - then DO A RESET.

If you are managing your clock effectively, you should be getting at least 80-90% of your available drive time (the 11 hours) every day.

This doesn't mean "cheating your logs" - this does mean spending AS MUCH TIME LEGALLY OFF DUTY AS POSSIBLE. Get to a shipper , get checked in, have a few hours to wait - OFF DUTY. You should be OFF DUTY or SLEEPER BERTH as much as LEGALLY POSSIBLE during the time you are not ACTUALLY DRIVING.

From your lips to Gods ears, should you be getting SO MANY MILES - that you have to start really worrying about re-caps/restarts. As T-Man mentions - if you can spend right around 9 hours a day TOTAL (between On Duty/On Duty Driving) you could theoretically run forever on recaps. Not the way our world works though.

Rick

What's a reset? I think the last one I took was mid July. It's really up to the driver to figure out how to maximize their hours. Let's say you have a delivery at 2000 at a receiver and you know it's gonna take a couple hours to unload. You're only a few hours away when you start your day so your first thought is wow, this is gonna be a crappy day on hours. Well, it doesn't have to be. Your drive time hours won't be very many but leave yourself on duty and let that clock run until midnight so that you can make up for some recap hours. Still keep in mind that doing this has to work with your next load as well but there are always ways to work the clock in your favor.

I've been running for 6 months and have taken two resets. One was not by choice, I got stuck at a shipper for 34 hours. The second was last week when I had too much time on a load and took a 34 at home with dispatch approval.

I have run on recaps very well, averaging 2800 miles per week.

But then again, I have an amazing dispatcher who monitors my hours and will send me one or two short loads to compensate for not getting enough recap hours back. I do run hard, driving at least 10 hours per day if I have the hours. But waiting around at meathouses generally evens out my hours. And I don't have a problem running my 70 down, then waiting till midnight to get more hours back. It's all about trip planning. I know how much time I get back, and plan accordingly.

I agree it is all about trip planning and everything but I really like my resets. I like to run the clock down as fast as possible and then reset. I get an extra 500 miles a week doing it that way. If I'm running recaps I average around 2500 a week. If I run my 11 out every day and reset I get around 3000. Plus the extra time to restock the cooler and clean the truck is always nice.

My codriver and I try to ensure at least one of us gets a restart weekly. This past month he got rolling restarts and i ran on recaps for 4 weeks. We dont normally stay out that long but we were building up hometime to spend with his mom in georgia. Her health isnt so good so we spent that time helping her rearrange her house and redo her flower beds.

Our ability to reset depends entirely on our dispatched loads and whether they can let us slow down for a day or two.

My FM doesn't allow them. If I have five hours left on my 70 he wikk run me that five hours then get my hours at midnight.

Only get 34/on home time