Feeling Discouraged

Hello fellow truckers, I need to reach out and speak with you all. I’ve had my CDL for 8 months now and I am local. I have been doing well and backing into loading docks is no problem. I just started a new job that has start times anywhere from 12am-4am 5 days a week. About 55 hours a week. I am having an extremely difficult time getting decent rest. I’ve also been getting switched from nights to afternoons. Today was very difficult. I needed to use my 16 hour exemption and I only slept about 1 hour last night. I thought about calling out because I do not feel comfortable driving a CMV with such little sleep. My truck broke down earlier today and after an hour and a half my manager wanted me to continue getting stops completed. By this time I had been on duty for 11 hours. I let him know that I wanted to call it a day considering I had only slept 1 hour but he made me finish the route. I have to be up in 5 hours to start shift for tomorrow. Is this common in this industry and what would any of you had done in similar circumstances? Thanks everyone.

Legally, you need to have 10 hours off from the time you went off duty.

When you get off work, go home shower and go to bed. Don't eat and make sure the room is blacked out. If you can't black out the room, wrap a towel around your head so it's covering your eyes and ears.

If you're not able to work out being able to sleep, you're going to have to find another job. The risk isn't worth it.

I let him know that I wanted to call it a day considering I had only slept 1 hour but he made me finish the route.

Don't let anyone tell you that you must continue on if you don't feel that you safely can. The regs say

Drivers may not operate, nor shall a motor carrier require or permit a driver to operate, a CMV if they are too tired or sick to drive safely. Operation may be discontinued at the driver's discretion.

You need to be your own advocate. It's a violation of federal law and if something happens due to you being ill or fatigued behind the wheel it's setting you and the carrier up for a lawsuit.

However, if this is an ongoing issue that you're not able to complete your work due to being fatigued I'm sure at some point the company can discipline you for it. As a professional driver it's our responsibility to be well rested ready to start our shift. Banks gave excellent advice. Unfortunately some people struggle adapting to unnatural sleep cycles. There's a ton of CDL jobs out there for safe drivers just gotta find the kind of job you want that has the hours you like.

If you can't adjust your sleeping schedule, get a different job, there's plenty out there. It ain't too hard to kill someone in a semi and the cops aren't going to care if your dispatcher is a ****. Sleep is very important, I'm on a prescription amphetamine and even that can only get me so far if I don't get my 6 hours.

It seems that you may want to consider a different company with more consistent start times and without a push to have you drive when you can't safely do so.

Sleep has been increasingly difficult for me to get, maybe age related or just too much on my plate. Earlier I was prescribed Trazadone. I started at 100mg and it helped somewhat and got increased to 150mg and it has helped a lot. I fall asleep within minutes of going to bed. My doctor said I should remain drowsy for 8 hours. Ask your doctor about it.

Trazadone can be a drug that gets a driver medically disqualified. It's best to avoid and medication that makes you sleepy.

Trazadone can be a drug that gets a driver medically disqualified. It's best to avoid and medication that makes you sleepy.

I checked that out some and it doesn't seem to be such a class of drug. Please clarify if I'm mistaken, I apologize if I am. I am not drowsy when I typically get up 6-7 hours later. I am a CCW holder and asked my doctor if it should have any impact on that and he said "not at all" so I would hope that it would be okay for a commercial driver to use it, if needed. Trazadone is also used for depression but also widely prescribed as a sleep aid. I was more of a zombie at times before starting to use it.

Avoid ingesting anything ( prescription or OTC) to help you sleep, as that is only masking a problem, as opposed to correcting the cause. You're setting your brain up to become dependent, then after awhile you cannot sleep without.

I checked that out some and it doesn't seem to be such a class of drug. Please clarify if I'm mistaken, I apologize if I am. I am not drowsy when I typically get up 6-7 hours later

First it's what Packrat did.

Secondly, it's doctors discretion whether or not they want to approve or deny a med card. They can deny for taking medication that puts a person to sleep. While your experience may be positive, that doesn't mean that will be the case for everybody and driving a truck would be the worst possible time to find out.

Get a set of noise canceling wireless headphones. Download Spotify. Search: Binaural sleep playlist. Volume super low.

There are a few different playlists that focus on different frequencies. Some of them don't work for me. The ones that do, if I turn them on too loud, it's an instant zing feeling in my lower back. It's weird as heck.

The way it was described to me, is that some of us have brains that just won't stop running in circles. Imagine that clown thing from the 80s where you drew on his beard with metal shavings. Think of those metal shavings as your brain activity. It's all scattered every which way, no rhyme or reason. What these playlists CAN do, is move all those metal shavings into neat and tidy presentation, and your brain allows you to sleep.

I am a big fan of trying non invasive things first. Short of finding a new job, this might help as a stop gap to get natural non medicated sleep.