What Is Recapping Hours -- Having Hard Time Understanding

I made a spreadsheet that calculates the "rolling 8 day" used to calculate the 70 hours in 8 days, based on my understanding.

Mon Tue Wed Thurs Friday Sat Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Friday Mon Tues On Duty Hours 8.7 8.7 8.7 8.7 8.7 8.7 8.7 8.7 8.7 8.7 8.7 8.7 8.7 8.7 8 day hours 69.6 69.6 69.6 69.6 69.6 69.6 69.6

Please correct me if my understanding is wrong.

The spreadsheet didn't come out right:

That spreadsheet seems to assume your doing the exact same amount of on duty hours everyday. Sure if you can do exactly 8.75 hours of combined on duty and drive time everyday you will never run out of hours. But that may very likely not be possible. I'll often get loads that pick up in the afternoon and need to be delivered the next morning 500+ miles away. I'm not getting that done in 8.75 hours. I'll also often need to pull consecutive as close to 11 hour drive shifts as I can to make some appointments. And that's not considering on duty time for inspections, fueling, or loading/unloading. I watch my recaps closely, but I will run the max amount of drive hours I have available to me in a daily period. I rarely take planned 34s and just run on whatever recaps I have. Sometimes I'll get a 34 waiting at a customer, and then it's game time with a fresh clock!

That spreadsheet seems to assume your doing the exact same amount of on duty hours everyday.

The numbers in the spreadsheet are just filler. I did 8.7 each days so that I could visualize "running recaps" non-stop. But if you enter in the actual time each day, it calculates the last 8 days. So if I enter in 14 hours for 5 days, I've already hit 70 on that first Saturday.

The nuance that I will need to add later when I learn it is figuring out where to "start" my time. For instance, if I take a 34 hour reset, beginning 10:00 hours Saturday, would I "start" a new 70 hour cycle at 20:00 hours Sunday night? Then calculate the number of on-duty hours, until 20:00 hours Monday night, etc?

if I take a 34 hour reset, beginning 10:00 hours Saturday, would I "start" a new 70 hour cycle at 20:00 hours Sunday night?

If you went on-duty Sunday at 2000, then yes your new 70 would begin from that point.

Then calculate the number of on-duty hours, until 20:00 hours Monday night, etc?

No. The on-duty hours end at midnight in the time zone of your company. So in your case, you went on duty at 2000 Sunday. The daily hours would end at midnight Central Time. You could only count on 4 hours of recap coming back to you 9 days later.

So basically, daily hours begin at 2400, and end at 2359.

So if I understand correctly, with my scenario of coming off a 34 hour reset and going on-duty 2000 hours Sunday night:

1. Drive 8 hours (2000 Sunday to 0400 Monday).

I would have 4 hours of Sunday time and 4 hours of Monday time counting toward my 70.

2. I take 10 hours in the sleeper, then drive 10 hours from 1400 to 2359.

I would add that 10 hours to the 4 hours of Monday morning time for a total of 14 hours of Monday time counting toward my 70.

3. On the 9th day I would "get back" 4 hours on my 70.

4. On the 10th day I would "get back" an additional 14 hours on my 70.

Yup, that's it. You got it.

The hours you get back will be tacked on to any remaining hours you already have. So if you get to the truck stop and park it on day 8 with 1 hour left on your 70, you'll wake up to 5 hours now on your 70 (4+ the 1 remaining from day 8).

Now let's say you only worked 2 hours on day 9. 5 minus those 2 would leave you a balance of 3 hours that roll over into day 10, giving you 17 hours on your 70.

Here's my take on recaps. I understand the math. Some drivers like to drive everyday so they limit their daily driving to 8:45 hours a day so they can keep rolling every day. That's fine because it's their style. Others like to use up their 11/14 everyday and then take the 34 hour reset. It's a matter of personal preference, but I decided I liked my 34 hour reset.