What Would You Do?

This could be fun with the various responses from all, let's see how it goes...

You spent the night at the consignee in West Park, FL and just got empty in the morning. Your next load picks up in Miami, FL(15 miles/25 minutes away) on 7/2(Monday) at 1000hrs and delivers to Centreville, AL on 7/4(Wednesday) at 0700hrs. It will take you 13 hours and 50 minutes of drive time to pick up and deliver. Sounds easy enough and you know you have the hours on your recap. Your 70 looks like this:

7/2 current hours 7:30

7/3(Tuesday) you get back 5:40

7/4 you get back 11:10

You will log 15 minutes to secure/load and 15 minutes for post trip.

You are tarped/loaded and can leave the shipper by 1300.

Ok so you accepted the load because it's obvious you have more than enough time right? Well, while being loaded you recieve a message from your DM stating that the consignee will be closed for the 4th and will close early on the 3rd. If you can make it by 1400 on the 3rd they will unload you. No new appointment is sent to you.

I think I got it all, if I missed something ask away. I will post what I did when everybody has responded. There are probably quite a few different "right" answers so dont be shy. So my question is, what would YOU do?

Since I live between the two, I’d probably ask what time I could deliver on the 5th.

So if I'm reading that correctly, you only have 13:10 available hours Mon & Tue. for a load that requires at least 13:50 drive time to get it there on Tue. Not going to happen unless you violate.

So the easy answer for me would be to still get as far as possible Tue before running out of hours, leaving myself an hr or two short of 90. Rather than finishing the drive on Wed 7/4, I'd just stay where I was and get a reset in. The trick would be in not slacking off Mon or Tue. I'd need to be parked early enough on Tue to allow 34hrs before needing to roll again.

Then it's just a matter of getting started early enough Thurs 7/5 to roll in to 90 with a fresh 70.

My reading comprehension isn't what it used to be, so unless I'm missing something this is what I'd do.

This is what I would do.

So if I'm reading that correctly, you only have 13:10 available hours Mon & Tue. for a load that requires at least 13:50 drive time to get it there on Tue. Not going to happen unless you violate.

So the easy answer for me would be to still get as far as possible Tue before running out of hours, leaving myself an hr or two short of 90. Rather than finishing the drive on Wed 7/4, I'd just stay where I was and get a reset in. The trick would be in not slacking off Mon or Tue. I'd need to be parked early enough on Tue to allow 34hrs before needing to roll again.

Then it's just a matter of getting started early enough Thurs 7/5 to roll in to 90 with a fresh 70.

My reading comprehension isn't what it used to be, so unless I'm missing something this is what I'd do.

So if I'm reading that correctly, you only have 13:10 available hours Mon & Tue. for a load that requires at least 13:50 drive time to get it there on Tue. Not going to happen unless you violate.

So the easy answer for me would be to still get as far as possible Tue before running out of hours, leaving myself an hr or two short of 90. Rather than finishing the drive on Wed 7/4, I'd just stay where I was and get a reset in. The trick would be in not slacking off Mon or Tue. I'd need to be parked early enough on Tue to allow 34hrs before needing to roll again.

Then it's just a matter of getting started early enough Thurs 7/5 to roll in to 90 with a fresh 70.

My reading comprehension isn't what it used to be, so unless I'm missing something this is what I'd do.

Turtle, your reading comprehension is on par. I tried to make it easy to read and provide all the neccessary information.

What you would do is the first plan I had and what I thought about all the way to petro ocala in Red****, fl, where I shut down for the night. I sat in the lot for probably about 2 hours, before going in and taking a shower, fighting with myself and what I was going to do.

I chose the unpopular method and delivered the load on 7/3. I did it because I am flagged for hometime af the end of next week and I know that makes me unavailable for a lot of loads. They will keep me east of I35 and somewhat close to home. I called safety and let them know what happened, no love lost just not going to become a habit.

I picked my next load up at the Birmingham terminal after taking a 10. Currently sitting empty in PA a day before scheduled delivery. I didn't have to keep running but something about sitting on that load and only having 750 miles by Thursday morning just wasnt sitting right. It's the first time I've had a violation and hopefully the last.

Hopefully some of you considering a career in trucking read turtles response and do what he would have done. Gambling with your license is not wise but sometimes the old get'r done kicks in and it's hard to tell yourself no. Thanks for the responses to all.

So far I haven't had to violate to make a delivery. I did however violate a 14hr once in order to get to a hotel, since my APU went down in the middle of a heat wave. No harm no foul on that one.

I once had a phone discussion with my FM , and told him I'd be willing to violate if a load absolutely needs to be somewhere. He said the official policy is never to violate. Keyword "official". Thankfully I've never been put in that position.

In hindsight I wish I'd refrained from answering your post, to let rookies and soon-to-be drivers come up with an answer to your question. Would have been interesting.

Fm:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.

APU:

Auxiliary Power Unit

On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.

Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.

I would have done Turtle's idea as well. No load is worth my life or my CDL. However, we each are in charge of ourselves. Keep in mind, in the case of accidents or many violations in a company can lead to a look at all logs going back much more than 8 days. Any and all violations can come back to bite.

It looks like you did your math on about 50mph average for the trip, which is how I normally do it. But knowing some of my drive time is interstate I know I'll do a little better. I would have gone the route of shoving the clock over just a hair to deliver early, depending on how my schedule looks the last day in, the 3rd. If I'm too far out I would have gone turtle's route and pulled a 34, trying to find a cool place to shut down and take in the fireworks displays

I cant even begin to tackle this one, yet... But the responses are sparking some insights. Once in awhile I randomly pull up an article or post here about time management, trip planning, etc., because that's something I really want get better at doing.

Hoping to see more of these puzzle-posts around here! While I'm not very good at working them out, at least I can learn from the more experienced drivers here.

This is a horrible post on a forum full of newbies. You violated your hours to “git-r-done,” and with no consequences. Poor example of a supposedly professional driver. You made the wrong choice because you were greedy, and got lucky nothing happened. If you’d gotten in an accident while in violation, bet you wouldn’t be making much money for the next couple months. Or what happens if you have to go over your hours this week because of traffic, breakdown, or weather, and suddenly you are a habitual violater at your next inspection. Guys doing what you did is the reason paper logs were taken away from us.

I’m disappointed in you and this site.