Reset Or Recap?

For years now I've watched the noobs wrangle with this question. I honestly don't think we can answer it in the form of which way is better or more efficient, or even which way makes more money.

I actually agree with Turtle when he says you end up sitting and waiting more on re-caps. Here's an example: let's say you have five and a half hours coming back to you and you've already burned up your current day's hours by 0800. Now you've got to park at 0800 and wait for midnight to start driving. You can now drive until about 0500 and park it again for 19 hours. That is not fun - in fact it drives me way more crazy than planning and enjoying myself on a 34 hour break.

Yours gonna develop your own style and preferences. There's no right or wrong choice. You get 70 hours in eight days no matter how you slice it up. Wild Bill, just keep hitting it hard like you are and you'll be forced to take a 34. You'll see what I mean when you look at what you've got to work with after six days.

I wrote this in a prior discussion on the subject:

In a 30 day period:

Driver A likes to run on recaps. If he/she is on duty for exactly 8.75 hours every day, they will never run out of hours, reaching 70 hrs on day 8, and recapping 8.75 hrs back on day 9, day 10, etc.

Take a half-hour for pre-trip and loading, that leaves 8.25 hours to drive every day.

8.25x62mph =511.5 miles per day x 30 days =15345 miles/month with no days off.

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Driver B likes to run max hours with resets. He/she drives 11hrs per day, plus a half hr for pretrip/loading. At 11.5hrs on duty each day, they'll hit 69hrs on day 6, needing a reset.

11x62mph =682 miles per day. With a reset needed after every 6th day, they can only work/drive 24 days a month. 682x24days = 16368 miles/month.

So Driver B gets more miles, PLUS Driver B gets the other 6 days of the month off while resetting. And this doesn't count against hometime.

Granted, this is a fantasy scenario. But I'll always be shooting for more miles, more $, and increased time to relax & recharge. Obviously we're not in a perfect world. In reality, the loads and appt times dictate how we drive.

Oh, and for those that say "you're not making any money if you're sitting for 34 hours", don't forget you're sitting for 20 of those hours also, due to your (2) 10hr breaks.

The other 14hrs? Those are the extra hours you sit every day after 8.75 hrs, while I'm still rolling to 11hrs.

What can new drivers take away from this? Just do the best you can every day, and the rest will work itself out, whether resetting or recapping.

Personally, I do the recaps, mainly because I don't enjoy driving as many hours each day constantly as the clock allows.

I've tried both ways, resets vs recaps, and recaps works best for me. I've gone more than 75 consecutive days before without a 34 hour reset on the road.

11x62mph =682 miles per day.

Your math is way off, and the compared distance between the two ways of running is going to much closer in the real world. You'd be lucky to get even 600 miles everyday running your full 11 hours. Traffic, terrain, weather, shippers and cons, and timing and mileage of the runs themselves are all limiting factors. This is why if you actually turn over 600 miles in a day you're exhausted at the end of it. Three or four consecutive days of 525-600 miles will often mean using almost all of your 14 hour clock, unless your company somehow has loads that are 600 and whatever miles on a daily basis that all pick up and deliver perfectly with your ten hour resets.

The advantage to doing 34 hour resets and just running your clock to the max for six consecutive days is you don't have to worry as much about on duty time eating into your drive time. Running recaps, on duty time can end up costing you the drive time you need to get to a destination that day. So you're off duty a lot more running recaps, if you want to turn miles and earn that is.

Starting out, just run as the company dispatches you because they are already going to try and maximize your efficiency. As you go you'll learn the routine and what time you spend doing certain tasks and how to become more efficient in those tasks. You'll also learn how to keep your hours more consistent (as far as sleep schedule) which in my opinion is more easily done running recaps because you typically only have 5-12 hours in a day.

I have run mainly recaps since going solo on February 20th, 2019. I just hit 120,020 miles on January 28th, 2020. My fellow classmates running weekly with resets are 10000-30000 miles behind me. I'll post my paychecks and miles to date within the next week for people to get an idea of your first year. This is with roehl but other companies should be similar.

I kind of veered off topic there, but the point goes to Old School's advice of being a top tier driver. He or other experienced drivers on here could probably give individual examples of running pretty much the same weekly mileage whether they run recaps or do 34s.

Another advantage to running recaps in my opinion is you expose yourself to more load availability. You're available while the guy doing a 34 misses out. Also, you're staying in dispatches mind because you're running more often through more shifts and they know you need miles and are willing to run.

I'm not telling anyone they should run recaps or resets. Just looking at the math of the situation here:

11x62mph =682 miles per day.

Your math is way off, and the compared distance between the two ways of running is going to much closer in the real world. You'd be lucky to get even 600 miles everyday running your full 11 hours.

Being lucky is not the point here. The point is which method of managing the clock will get you more miles on average. You would be equally lucky to get 477 miles every day running 8.75 hours. These are theoretical examples. We leave out the largely irrelevant minutia so as to make the example easier to understand. As far as the claim that Turtle's math is way off... It's really not.

Traffic, terrain, weather, shippers and cons, and timing and mileage of the runs themselves are all limiting factors.

But these are not limiting factors if you run recaps?

Three or four consecutive days of 525-600 miles will often mean using almost all of your 14 hour clock, unless your company somehow has loads that are 600 and whatever miles on a daily basis that all pick up and deliver perfectly with your ten hour resets.

Why do the loads have to pick up and deliver so perfectly?

The advantage to doing 34 hour resets and just running your clock to the max for six consecutive days is you don't have to worry as much about on duty time eating into your drive time. Running recaps, on duty time can end up costing you the drive time you need to get to a destination that day. So you're off duty a lot more running recaps, if you want to turn miles and earn that is.

This is true by the same token that it's inefficient to take multiple breaks throughout a driver's driving hours. We will leave the actual time stopped out of the equation, but when the driver makes more stops, looks for a place to park, gets back on the highway, etc. he spends less time driving the maximum allowable speed as a percentage of his driving hours, and thus doesn't turn as many miles. Running recaps means more stops as a percentage of driving time. 8 stops per 70 hours versus 5 or 6/70. Just this point can add up to a monthly phone bill or a decent dinner somewhere. Some people might want the extra money and run resets, some people might want the extra time off every day and run recaps. That's up to them.

I have run mainly recaps since going solo on February 20th, 2019. I just hit 120,020 miles on January 28th, 2020. My fellow classmates running weekly with resets are 10000-30000 miles behind me. I'll post my paychecks and miles to date within the next week for people to get an idea of your first year. This is with roehl but other companies should be similar.

I don't think this is likely to be an apples to apples comparison. Those other drivers could have driven fewer miles for any number of reasons. Boiling it down only to recaps vs resets isn't likely to be accurate.

Another advantage to running recaps in my opinion is you expose yourself to more load availability. You're available while the guy doing a 34 misses out. Also, you're staying in dispatches mind because you're running more often through more shifts and they know you need miles and are willing to run.

But he is available during some of those 15.25 hours that you must be off duty. Say he finishes delivering at hour 9 on his 11-hour driving clock and another load is available nearby. You are already out of hours for the day. Who is going to get the load?

Turtle's example is not real world:

Granted, this is a fantasy scenario.

But rather a comparison of which is more efficient under perfect conditions.

I have run the math for both resets and recaps and can tell you that resets generate more annual miles. The reason being that the "cycle" of running ideal HOS under resets is shorter than the "cycle" for recaps. In simple terms, as Turtle states, you need a reset after about 6 days. It's actually a little shorter, but a 70 hour cycle, including only driving, mandatory 30 minute break, 10 hour break, and 34 hour reset is about 7 days. If you run recaps forever, each 70 hour cycle takes you 8 days.

My .02 cents is that it is a personal preference. And you have to pace yourself. On a training diary thread that went on for long time, a rookie TMC driver bragged about how hard he ran and posted his numbers after his first year. They were fantastic. But he burnt himself out and left TMC. On another recent thread, a driver said he wants to run solo 3,000 to 4,000 miles per week. In reading these forums for quite a while, most of the experienced drivers records for a week is about 3600. If anyone has ever done 4,000 miles in a 7 day week, please let me and also let me know if you would ever do it again.

Assuming for each driver that they have no significant incidents and mostly regular on-time delivery for only 50 weeks or work per year, my thoughts as far as mileage are as follows

Driver A runs an average of 2,000 miles per week, which is just over 100,000 miles per year. This is probably about the lowest you can run and remain employed for very long.

Driver B runs an average of 2,500 miles per week, which is about 125,000 miles per year. This driver's company is pretty content with him. He could run more, but overall he's a solid driver.

Driver C runs an average of 2,750 per week, which is about 137,000 miles per year. Old School ran about 130,000 miles last year. Most companies are going to love this driver.

Driver D runs an average of 3,000 miles per week, which is about 150,000 miles per year. Most companies will love this driver, but at the same time will be concerned that he would get burnt out and either 1) leave trucking or 2) leave for another company that pays more per mile. When I was researching trucking early on, Schneider post their to driver's annual mileage of 167,000 miles.

I plan to be somewhere between Driver B and Driver C. Will there be times when my FM needs me to run 3,500 miles in a week? Yes, and I will do it. But if he runs me 3,500 miles a week non-stop for 2 months, he's gonna get professional and respectful message of the nature that I'm not going to keep this up forever. BTW, 3,500 miles in 60 hours (assuming 10 hours on-duty for other things) equals about 580 miles per day for 6 days before a reset, and at 10 hours that averages 58 mph. Packrat runs about 57 mph average.

Your math is way off

How so? Looks like pretty simple math to me.

Traffic, terrain, weather, shippers and cons, and timing and mileage of the runs themselves are all limiting factors.

Yeah, i know that. Those factors will affect everyone no matter what their preference is. The scenario I described above is simply an example of what's possible in the absence of outside limiting factors. Did you miss the part where I said:

Strictly mathematically speaking

In reality, it's a crapshoot. The best laid plans can go to waste with one appointment change or delay. Just do the best you can every day, find your rhythm, and see what works for you.

The truth is both options will need to be employed from time to time.

on duty hours can vary greatly from day to day. Your load and appointment time will usually dictate whether you recap or reset.

I tried to be pretty clear in explaining this was a "best case" scenario.

You're available while the guy doing a 34 misses out.

You're assuming I'm empty when I reset. Not the case. 99% of the time I'm sitting on a load during a reset. It's planned that way by design. Dispatchers and load planners will figure out how you like to run, and plan accordingly.

Look, you don't have to like resets. That wasn't the intention of my post. If recaps works for you, that's great. I've never said otherwise. If we as drivers are out there getting it done, it doesn't matter how we do it. That's the consistent theme here. By putting the info out there like this, readers can make their own informed decision.

Ive been forced to take 2 resets the past 3 weeks. This week i have 4 hrs left on my 70 with nothing coming back tomorrow. My load delivered to Holiday City Ohio today and my dispatcher stepped in and told me to drop it in Trenton Ohio at one of our terminals. I probably would have had 1.5 hrs left on my clock which would have stranded me up there which doesn't have a ton of freight options for us. I would have been sitting at that brand new Loves on 90 at the indiana/ohio border for a 34.

I have hometime scheduled for thursday at 7am at our terminal in Richfield Wi. No way i would have gotten a load from there home so i guess i lucked out this week with no reset. Ill probably get a dunnage load of empty kegs out of miller brewery to drop in Milwaukee. Drive for 3.5 hrs on wed and finish up Thursday morning in wisconsin and head home to chicago.

As far as the three recap weeks.... Week 1 was 3600 miles..... Insane Week was 3300 This week will be 3100 without the reset.

Im too much of a noob to say which i prefer or is better. But i hate resets. Its so boring but i do love those miles.

Ive been forced to take 2 resets the past 3 weeks. This week i have 4 hrs left on my 70 with nothing coming back tomorrow. My load delivered to Holiday City Ohio today and my dispatcher stepped in and told me to drop it in Trenton Ohio at one of our terminals. I probably would have had 1.5 hrs left on my clock which would have stranded me up there which doesn't have a ton of freight options for us. I would have been sitting at that brand new Loves on 90 at the indiana/ohio border for a 34.

I have hometime scheduled for thursday at 7am at our terminal in Richfield Wi. No way i would have gotten a load from there home so i guess i lucked out this week with no reset. Ill probably get a dunnage load of empty kegs out of miller brewery to drop in Milwaukee. Drive for 3.5 hrs on wed and finish up Thursday morning in wisconsin and head home to chicago.

As far as the three recap weeks.... Week 1 was 3600 miles..... Insane Week was 3300 This week will be 3100 without the reset.

Im too much of a noob to say which i prefer or is better. But i hate resets. Its so boring but i do love those miles.

3600 miles was insane. Week 2 was 3300

If anyone has ever done 4,000 miles in a 7 day week, please let me and also let me know if you would ever do it again.

Rob, there's probably some confusion going on when people talk about having a really big week. Let me tell you, if anybody can consistently run more than 3,600 miles in a week they are most likely breaking the law someway or another. I've had big weeks. In fact this week was big, but let's look at why it's big.

My paycheck will have 4,623 miles on it. Drivers love to talk about a big week like that. Most of us realize how that happens. You simply can't drive that kind of miles under the current HOS and log everything properly. We always have a specific "cutoff" time for turning in our completed loads. Mine is Tuesday mornings @ 10:30 Phoenix, AZ time.

Here's what took place for me to get that nice fat paycheck: I completed an 1,892 mile trip on Tuesday, but it was @ 12 noon in Phoenix when I wrapped things up. Then I ran two more loads before the next cutoff, making up the balance of the 4,623 miles. I also did a 34 hour reset in there somewhere. So, I had a full day off this week, and still managed a 4,623 mile paycheck. A good bit of those miles were run during the previous week.

There's a lot of people who "talk" about "running hard." We do run hard at times, but once a person has gained some experience at handling the realities of this career, you can pace yourself and pretty much max out your earnings without burning yourself out. You probably noticed how I tried to encourage the TMC driver you reference to take a different approach so he wouldn't burn himself out. This job can become dangerous, and absolutely no fun if you're stressing yourself out all the time.