Trip Planning, Please Help.

I'm glad you brought this up OS, as I had been thinking about this very subject. I understand the split sleeper rule very well and new that 8 hrs in the sleeper birth essentially stops the clock on my 14 hrs. But do I HAVE to do a break later to complete the split berth rule or am I still legal just using the 8 hr berth to extend then doing a 10 hr break when I'm done driving?

I hope my question makes sense, just want to be sure if I can use the 8 hr sleeper part without completing the entire split sleeper rule.

Woody

If you do an 8 hour sleeper birth, then a 10 hour break, you are completing the split sleeper. 2 hours into your 10 you'll get hours back. And then you'll complete the 10 as normal.

The Sleeper Berth rule is a complete package. You have to do both breaks.

Old School, that is a great idea. And when I start learning these companies better, I will try doing that.

Nothing yet has been any kind of "schedule" and I haven't been to the same customer twice except for one in CO.

And I doubt I will get back there soon. It was when I was driving team during my training. What is carried, the company likes teams to do it, so it doesn't stop.

Every input has been good. I will keep everything in mind and keep the ideas on hand as more experience rolls by.

Keep it safe out here, the life you save might be your own. Joe S.

The Sleeper Berth rule is a complete package. You have to do both breaks.

Only if you want to keep the rule going. (I.E. 8 hours sleeper, 2 hour break, 8 hours sleeper, 2 hour break.) 2 hours into your 10 you will get back the hours as if you had taken a 2. But you won't care because you're taking a 10 and a 10 resets your 14.

Just don't want anyone getting the idea that if they take 8 in the sleeper they have to do a 2 before they can do a 10 or anything like that.

At our company you really don't want to try going off duty or sleeper berth while at a customer. They are always harping on being 100% legal and it sounds like they do audits a lot because they are always sending out messages about them. If you go off duty here, not only will you get busted on audits, which I think affects your company risk analysis score, but it also voids any chance you have for trying to get detention pay. ("You were off duty. We're not paying you to not work.")

The Sleeper Berth rule is a complete package. You have to do both breaks.

Not true. I do the split sleeper berth all the time but hardly do I ever mess with the 2 hours off off duty time. There's no problem doing 8 hours of sleeper berth and then after your shift doing a full 10 hour in sleeper berth.

At our company you really don't want to try going off duty or sleeper berth while at a customer. They are always harping on being 100% legal and it sounds like they do audits a lot because they are always sending out messages about them. If you go off duty here, not only will you get busted on audits, which I think affects your company risk analysis score, but it also voids any chance you have for trying to get detention pay. ("You were off duty. We're not paying you to not work.")

This answers a lot of the questions I was having as to how you were running up against your seventy hour clock and still only getting in 1700 miles. I'm not an expert on this, but I was taught by my employer that you don't want to be on "off duty" at a customer, because that indicates that you could possibly be away from your truck (i.e. down the street at a restaurant, etc.), but that it is perfectly fine to be on sleeper berth because that means that you are with your truck, but taking a break or resting while the customer is dealing with other truck loads. I always allow some "on duty" time while I'm at a customer, but for the sake of protecting my seventy hour clock, if I'm going to be there extensively I move to the "sleeper berth". This is common practice all over the place and I have never heard of anyone having trouble with an audit over this.

They are very specific about it here. Around the time the new rules went into affect last summer they sent out a lot of messages and we were required to watch a few training videos about it. At the customer has to be on duty not driving. Not off duty, not sleeper berth.

So if you are a shipper for 5 hours waiting to be unloaded and you lay down in the sleeper you can't log it as sleeper berth? If that is the case that is illegal as hell. Anytime your butt touches the bunk its sleeper berth.

Rookie Trucker, I'm still just mystified by your explanations of Swifts over the road operation. There is absolutely no way they can make a dime if it is run the way you say it is. We had a former member here named David who was a Swift driver and I never heard him say anything like the things you are reporting to us. I'm not accusing you of falsehoods, I'm just stunned that it could really be like you say because they would not even be able to keep a driver long enough to pay his contract back and they would be losing money hand over fist. I understand they might be micro-managing the driver to death, but you mentioned shagging trailers and having nine trips in a week. I have never shagged a trailer, and certainly have never had as many as nine trips in a week. That is not how an over the road truck operates. I usually have maybe three trips, some times four and once in a great while I'll get in five in a pay period. I average around 2800 miles per pay period.

I seriously think there is something that you are just not getting, but you sound like such an intelligent hard working guy that I can't really see that as being the case either. You really need to have a sit down with someone who is higher up than your dispatcher. Someone who understands that there is no way that you are contributing anything to the companies bottom line if you keep running the way you are now. I'll guarantee you that there are some suits somewhere in that operation who are just as frustrated as you are that you're not doing any better than somewhere around 1500 miles a week. You've just got to find the right people and get something done about it. I seriously don't know what the answer is, but I can guarantee you that there are some people there who would much rather see you producing something for the company other than shagging a few trailers to where they are needed.