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

Forgive me Robert but i dont see the value in wasting hours on your 70 like that.

I'm with Sue.

Drive the time you need on Wednesday to get to your delivery and let the on duty clock run. Instead of only getting back a few hours on recap when they roll back through in 8 days, you can burn the clock and get back 7-8 and still get your 10 in before the next pickup.

I don't see how getting to your delivery and letting your clock run ON DUTY/NOT DRIVING helps your 70 or your recaps.

Was this a TYPO - or did you really mean that you shouldn't go OFF DUTY or SLEEPER after arriving at your delivery? If you meant that you stay ON DUTY - please explain how this helps?

Rick

I never lose loads by not taking the 34.

Usually FM will have me pick up a load and run it til my hours are gone. Then he wikk have someone repower my load and at midnight I will repower someone else's load. Last time worked out great cause I didn't want to go to Florida. I got just outside the border and another driver took my load. His load delivered the next day in Baton Rouge. My next load out of there got me into my hometown in NJ and I got hometine perfectly ;)

So its not always bad to not do 34s lol

Yes Rick, my comment is in response to when you're already running on recaps. Why would you only want 3 hours coming back to you on your 8 day vs leaving yourself on duty and getting back 7-8 hours. There isn't enough time to get in a full 34 because you can't stay at the receiver so you park at the closest location which could be any amount of miles away and you're going to start your clock finishing off the drive. Your next pickup isn't until the following afternoon so running the clock on duty isn't hurting your 70, you're already on recap hours. What you do gain is recap hours coming back to you and like I said, would you rather have 3 or 7-8?

I get what he is saying but that means those hours are not going into the 70 "pot" to be used the next day. So if I had 12 hours on my 70, ran three on duty at the customer I'd have 9 to run the next day. And those three hours get added to next week's corresponding day. But.... What if I need 10 hours for my next load and only have 9? Then I just lost a load. Three times this week I had to run one load 550+ miles on one drive shift. Ran down to :49, :22, and :08. Delivered with no issues.

I'm more concerned with my immediate needs than the following week. In part cause you just never know how long you could be at customers or even repair shops.

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

Sambo, I guess you see you started a very interesting discussion with all types of responses. I think you can draw the conclusion from this discussion that everybody looks at this subject from their own personal preferences, and that really is the answer to your question. You are allowed seventy hours drive time in eight days, you can't get more by doing a reset, or you won't get less if you don't. There is no magic formula to get around that restriction.

I actually enjoy taking a reset each week, and it is very unusual for me to do less than 3,000 miles per week. I run both ways - sometimes I reset, sometimes I do the re-caps. For me it gets determined by my loads. Here is an example: This week I had a back-haul load from Chicago to Port Fourchon, LA. I actually enjoy this area down here, and I knew I could get a really nice load with about 2,600 miles on it if I waited a couple of days. So I parked my truck down here and behaved myself like I was Jimmy Buffet. Here is the view from where my truck is parked. It's a tough life, but somebody's got to do this stuff!

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

Sambo, I guess you see you started a very interesting discussion with all types of responses. I think you can draw the conclusion from this discussion that everybody looks at this subject from their own personal preferences, and that really is the answer to your question. You are allowed seventy hours drive time in eight days, you can't get more by doing a reset, or you won't get less if you don't. There is no magic formula to get around that restriction.

I actually enjoy taking a reset each week, and it is very unusual for me to do less than 3,000 miles per week. I run both ways - sometimes I reset, sometimes I do the re-caps. For me it gets determined by my loads. Here is an example: This week I had a back-haul load from Chicago to Port Fourchon, LA. I actually enjoy this area down here, and I knew I could get a really nice load with about 2,600 miles on it if I waited a couple of days. So I parked my truck down here and behaved myself like I was Jimmy Buffet. Here is the view from where my truck is parked. It's a tough life, but somebody's got to do this stuff!

Gotta love some of the pics we can get from time to time.

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

Sambo, I guess you see you started a very interesting discussion with all types of responses. I think you can draw the conclusion from this discussion that everybody looks at this subject from their own personal preferences, and that really is the answer to your question. You are allowed seventy hours drive time in eight days, you can't get more by doing a reset, or you won't get less if you don't. There is no magic formula to get around that restriction.

I actually enjoy taking a reset each week, and it is very unusual for me to do less than 3,000 miles per week. I run both ways - sometimes I reset, sometimes I do the re-caps. For me it gets determined by my loads. Here is an example: This week I had a back-haul load from Chicago to Port Fourchon, LA. I actually enjoy this area down here, and I knew I could get a really nice load with about 2,600 miles on it if I waited a couple of days. So I parked my truck down here and behaved myself like I was Jimmy Buffet. Here is the view from where my truck is parked. It's a tough life, but somebody's got to do this stuff!

I see you are sitting near the swanky camps at port fourchon marina OS. I'd sit awile too.....i know some damn fine fishing spots along that section highway😀.

I am enjoying this topic.....it proves the old addage "there is more than one way to skin a cat" is true.

Yes Rick, my comment is in response to when you're already running on recaps. Why would you only want 3 hours coming back to you on your 8 day vs leaving yourself on duty and getting back 7-8 hours. There isn't enough time to get in a full 34 because you can't stay at the receiver so you park at the closest location which could be any amount of miles away and you're going to start your clock finishing off the drive. Your next pickup isn't until the following afternoon so running the clock on duty isn't hurting your 70, you're already on recap hours. What you do gain is recap hours coming back to you and like I said, would you rather have 3 or 7-8?

Call me obtuse - but I'm STILL NOT GETTING THE LOGIC here.

The way your elaborating here, sounds BACKWARDS. It is counter-intuitive to believe the MORE TIME you spend ON DUTY - the MORE TIME YOU GET BACK on a Recap.

It doesn't matter on the 8TH DAY, as that day FALLS OFF COMPLETELY. It matters on days 2-7, because the time you ate up STAYING ON DUTY - eats the 70 clock on those days. If you're running totally on re-caps, the time you spend OFF DUTY on the prior days, affects the available time that you have after your 10 hour break PLUS the time that comes back at midnight from the 8th day FALLING OFF.

By staying OFF DUTY - you will actually be GAINING TIME BACK on your 70.

We may just be reading each other the wrong way here.

We were ALWAYS TAUGHT - If you're not behind the wheel in motion (Driving - Line 3), fueling, pre/post tripping, or the 1st 15 minutes after arriving at a shipper and before leaving a shipper (On Duty/Not Driving - Line 4) - then you need to be OFF DUTY (Line 1) or SLEEPER (Line 2) - in order to not run your 70 clock.

You would not be pushed into running 100% on recaps quite so often, if you were OFF DUTY as much as possible, in order to save your 70 clock.

Your 11/14 are what they are - and we're not even talking about split-sleeper - which most people still can't understand unless you draw them a picture.

I'm sorry - much as I know it's important to keep the wheels turning and earning every day - if I have to sit until midnight, waiting to get 1/2 days hours back on a re-cap every day - it's time to do a reset.

OS, Brett or someone else - please jump in here if I'm just off the rails and not seeing this clearly.

Rick

I think i see what he is saying, if you are already on recaps and you are on a day where you got back 10 hours, that, instead of just doing a short day that day, it's better to go ahead and run out your 10 hours so that next week you get those 10 hours back again, instead of only a short day.

The problem with that is that, from what I gather, when you are on recaps, you are essentially gaining hours...you don't lose unused hours.

So, if on a particular day you gain 10 hours from a recap, but you only use 3 of them, then the next midnight you gain another 10, then that day, you'll now have 13 available, and if you only use 10 hours that day, then you'll have 3 plus whatever you get back the next night.

So,.on one hand, his logic is sound because you'll be getting back almost a full day every day, but it's also unsound because you would be burning up potential accumulative hours that you could use the next day.

It almost sounds like, once you use up your 70, when you start on recaps, you start rebuilding your hours pool and that you can take unused hours from one recap day and use them on another day. Sound about right?

Bingo, Sambo gets it. My 70 means very little because I'll run for months on recaps and always assure myself 8.5-9.5 hours of run time every day. It's not counter productive when you want to keep the wheels turning and have no real urge to take time off.