Ramp Parkers

So if someone has a delivery at 11pm, and they get off the door with bills in hand by say 1am. They are also located somewhat near a major city. Every truck stop in the area along with rest stops are filled and backed out onto the freeway, where does the driver park? I'm just curious because unless you get to choose your own pickup and drop off time, we all have had to "rough it" in less than desirable locations. Granted, I never had to use the ramp, but came close a few times.

I've had that scenario happen many times. Usually I'm able to split my sb if it's two hours there. If not, and you run out of hours in the dock, which I've had happen as well, I called into dispatch, got approval to use PC to get to the closest safe legal parking.

I've had that happen in Miami, got out of the reciever late and they let us park outside their building, but the city didn't. Came out and rousted us out of bed. I found a pay for parking place nearby, submitted the receipt and got reimbursed.

The couple times I came close to using a ramp was simply poor choices on my part. I would have had to shut down a couple hours earlier to get parking. Chose not to, gambled and almost lost. If we park illegally, we'll get dinged on safety scores for it, face punative action and are responsible for the tickets and or tow bill at my company.

I've had that scenario happen many times. Usually I'm able to split my sb if it's two hours there. If not, and you run out of hours in the dock, which I've had happen as well, I called into dispatch, got approval to use PC to get to the closest safe legal parking.

I've had that happen in Miami, got out of the reciever late and they let us park outside their building, but the city didn't. Came out and rousted us out of bed. I found a pay for parking place nearby, submitted the receipt and got reimbursed.

The couple times I came close to using a ramp was simply poor choices on my part. I would have had to shut down a couple hours earlier to get parking. Chose not to, gambled and almost lost. If we park illegally, we'll get dinged on safety scores for it, face punative action and are responsible for the tickets and or tow bill at my company.

Michael was close to running out of hours once and left San Jose in bad traffic and running empty headed to his drop yard. But he ran out of hours and there was no place to park between San Jose and Tracy and safety would not put him on PC so he parked on a ramp. Last night would have been tough for him if it weren't for the fact he was going on home time. He had a 11am appointment at Americold, got there at 10am. Got a door at a little after 2:00pm and they didn't get him unloaded until after 8:30pm. There would have likely been no parking anywhere available at that time and no way to have planned for over 9.5 hours of unloading after appointment time. As a rule, he reserves spots when needed and gets reimbursed for that.

He had a 11am appointment at Americold, got there at 10am. Got a door at a little after 2:00pm and they didn't get him unloaded until after 8:30pm. There would have likely been no parking anywhere available at that time and no way to have planned for over 9.5 hours of unloading after appointment time. As a rule, he reserves spots when needed and gets reimbursed for that

would've had a fresh clock had he logged off duty/sleeper. At a minimum he'd have been able to do a split

He had a 11am appointment at Americold, got there at 10am. Got a door at a little after 2:00pm and they didn't get him unloaded until after 8:30pm. There would have likely been no parking anywhere available at that time and no way to have planned for over 9.5 hours of unloading after appointment time. As a rule, he reserves spots when needed and gets reimbursed for that

would've had a fresh clock had he logged off duty/sleeper. At a minimum he'd have been able to do a split

In which instance are you referring? In the first instance, he was logged off duty while unloading but then slow traffic resulted in him running out of time. In the second instance, the example shows that he wouldn't have been able to plan where he might be parking that night since it took much longer than normal, even for Americold. Finding parking about 8:30pm is tough anywhere and if he would have reserved a spot it wouldn't have been near where he wound up for the night.

He had a 11am appointment at Americold, got there at 10am. Got a door at a little after 2:00pm and they didn't get him unloaded until after 8:30pm. There would have likely been no parking anywhere available at that time and no way to have planned for over 9.5 hours of unloading after appointment time. As a rule, he reserves spots when needed and gets reimbursed for that

would've had a fresh clock had he logged off duty/sleeper. At a minimum he'd have been able to do a split

In which instance are you referring? In the first instance, he was logged off duty while unloading but then slow traffic resulted in him running out of time. In the second instance, the example shows that he wouldn't have been able to plan where he might be parking that night since it took much longer than normal, even for Americold. Finding parking about 8:30pm is tough anywhere and if he would have reserved a spot it wouldn't have been near where he wound up for the night.

The 2nd instance. I know you said it wasn't a really big deal because he was heading on hometime. I'm just saying it wouldn't be an issue either way if he logged all of that time as off duty or sleeper, other than whatever the company requires for checking in etc. At a minimum he'd have time on his clock to get to legal open spot or he could run out his fresh clock through the night and shutdown in the morning after the solar powered drivers clear out.

You didn't share enough info about the first situation to know if split sleeper would've been beneficial. Many drivers utilize sleeper berth while being loaded or unloaded. Unfortunately ya never know how long they're going to take. Admittedly, I've never dealt with split sleeper and it confuses me for that very reason. When I clock in and start my day I go on duty and I'm on duty or driving until I clock out and go home for the day (company policy and nature of my job). Others here may be able to better explain real life examples of them using it to their benefit.

Does Michael use split sleepers? Just curious

What Michael could have done if possible was to switch to Sleeper after he checked in at Americold. After receiving a door assignment he could have creeped to his door (under 5mph) to stay in Sleeper status¹.

Once you hit 8hrs continuously in Sleeper² your available time reverts back to whatever it was when you first entered Sleeper. It basically pauses your clock. For example, if he had 6hrs left on his 14hr clock (which would have ticked down to 0 after 6hrs) when he first arrived, after 8hrs he would once again have 6hrs replenished on his 14hr clock.

I'm not the best at explaining this. I hope it makes sense.

¹Being able to creep to a door assignment isn't always possible. It depends on how close to the door he was while waiting.

²I'm not positive if 8hrs in Sleeper is still required after the most recent changes. It might only require 7hrs now.

Michael does regularly go into sleeper berth mode when at a shipper. I'm not sure if that was the case for the entire time at Americold yesterday since he sat waiting to get to a door for four hours and I don't know if he was on the property or out on the street. The point of that example is that he was unable to plan where he would be ending up at the end of his shift. I don't know if he could have found parking at that hour of the night but that depends on where his next assignment would have been because, as Rob pointed out, he could have driven until the next morning though I suspect he may not have been very well rested.

Like Papa Pig, Michael was even in sleeper berth when unloading at Dollar General stores. Park at the store the night before and not going on duty until after the load was unloaded the next morning. Something about Dollar General that doesn't get talked about much but pushing drivers to stay off duty while working is bad, IMO. However, it did train Michael into always going into sleeper berth mode and sometimes that works into splits for him. I honestly don't think he fully understands how they work but his Qualcomm unit gives him hours back and he goes with that, I believe.

Harvey, one thing Michael might need to keep in mind is that while unloading off duty and he has an incident which led to an injury, the insurance company could possibly reject that claim. I know that's not the case at every company but it is the case at many and that could be an absolute disaster.

Harvey, one thing Michael might need to keep in mind is that while unloading off duty and he has an incident which led to an injury, the insurance company could possibly reject that claim. I know that's not the case at every company but it is the case at many and that could be an absolute disaster.

His 4 months of working the Dollar General fleet for CR England ended in March 2021 and he's glad those days are long gone. Lots of times parking at a DG for the night meant being in a pretty sketchy neighborhood as well, sometimes with homeless people in the alley, etc. I'm surprised Papa Pig stayed so long in a DG fleet. Oh, Michael's job also involved a lot of hand unloading of frozen product down side stairs, potentially risky. How would your knees like that?!