What Would You Do? Part 3

'Morning folks. You're tuning into another installment of "What Would You Do?". This one is short, sweet, and tricky - just like my first kiss!

As always, experienced drivers lets give everyone else a chance to give their opinion/answer before we come in. Feedback is fine, just nothing that will give them the answer.

Rookies, Soon-to-be drivers, and folks considering trucking, lets be engaged in this discussion. Remember, these are real life situations that will happen to you on the road. I personally have gone through this exact situation that I'm about to talk about. You'll be the one making the decisions, no one else, so why not get in our practice right now instead of waiting until we're out on the road where it really matters? We love to see participation!

You are picking up a preloaded trailer from a Mars Candy manufacturing plant. This facility requires that all drivers present a trailer washout receipt for the trailer that they are dropping before you can pick up your preloaded trailer. Your previous load was a meat load. Your previous trailer washout for this trailer was 4 days ago.

Hours of Service:

4 out of 8 hours on your 8 hour clock. (8 hour break)

5 hours of 11 hours on your 11 hour clock. (11 hour driving time)

7 hours of 14 hours on your 14 hour clock.

11 hours and 14 minutes out of 70 hours on your 70 hour clock.

Recap tonight: 2 hours and 30 minutes.

Recap tomorrow: 10 hours and 23 minutes.

There's your HOS , is it even relevant? I don't know, you decide. (wink)

You are driving and notice you are within 30 miles of your pickup location. You remember you need to get a trailer washout! You find a Petro Truck Stop along your route. They have a trailer washout bay, you know this because you have been there before. You drive up to the wash bay without a worry in the world. The employee walks up to your truck rather sheepishly bearing the news that their wash bay is out of service due to a major water leak. You ask him where there's another washout nearby and he has no idea.

You head back into your truck to find another place to get a trailer washout. You find one 63 miles north of you. You are 8 miles south of your pickup location.

What do you do and why?

Hope you guys like it! Remember, there is no wrong answer, just the answer not given. Enjoy!

Alright, its answer time!

The Hours of Service aren't important here, I mainly just put that there to get you used to reading your hours. Managing your hours is the key to making money in this industry.

Having said that, the worst thing you can do is waste time off your 70 hour clock. Time that you wouldn't even get paid for, in other words, driving to that facility would be a complete waste of time and money.

Consider this, it would be approximately two hours spent driving just to get that washout. What you should always do is find a washout first thing, not wait until the last minute. Since we waited until the last minute we got put into a bad situation.

Financially, lets do the math on why getting that trailer washout would hurt your bottom line. Every hour on your clock is potential money you can make, every hour burnt is money you missed out on. Lets say we were getting paid .32cpm as example 1 and example 2 we will be getting paid .40cpm and we are governed at 62mph.

Multiply your maximum mph by your cpm and you'll get your hourly pay.

.32 x 62 = $19.84 .40 x 62 = $24.80

So driving at 62 mph for an hour nonstop gets us 19.84 and driving 62 mph with the greater pay gets us 24.80. For every hour wasted, that's how much you lose depending on your pay rate. In this case we would have been spending two hours on this trip.

So if you opted to get that trailer washout, that's honorable, but you're here to make money not do volunteer work. You would have missed out on just under 40$ at .32cpm and 50$ at .40cpm.

Obviously we need to be logging pretrips, posttrips, fueling, time at customers - all of this takes even more time away from your 70 hour clock! So why waste time you don't need to?

Now that we got that figured out. What would I have done?

I know that this is going to sound bad. A professional personality will get you far in trucking, but being a good liar will do wonders as well. What they don't know doesn't hurt them. There's boundaries, sure, but you need to worry about yourself and maximizing your income.

I would have put on my charm and give a great first impression to the security guard at the guard shack. I would present to him my receipt from 4 days ago. When he comments on the date, tell him you just came off of hometime and you had the trailer washed out before you headed home. Obviously, come in there with a completely clean and dry trailer. You must sweep the trailer. Which is fine, unless there's blood. If there's blood, then no matter what you get that trailer washed out! But in this case it was boxed meat and properly packaged.

They cannot question your operations. If you came off of hometime then that's what you did. They're a 9$ per hour "security" guard, don't allow yourself to think they take their job anymore serious than a sales associate at Home Depot. So what if the deadhead miles were a lot, I've had to deadhead 1500 miles before.

Deadhead: The distance you drive with an empty trailer to pickup your next load.

So there you have it. Sweeping out the trailer and making sure its completely dry. Befriend the security guard and tell him you just came off of hometime.

Great job everyone! I'm thrilled to see so many participants. Even if you didn't get it right, applaud yourself for coming out of the shadows and giving it a try.

I hope you folks enjoyed it. Feedback and comments are much appreciated from both experienced and inexperienced drivers.

And another thing I want to mention. This is a performance based job. You don't get the good paychecks burning time off of your clock for no reason.

If you would get the washout and I wouldnt. Then I would be two hours ahead of you, I would get done with my load two hours faster than you, and I would be able to move on to the next load before you thus bringing home more money at the end of the week.

You get every single little advantage you can out here. The driver in this puzzler should have looked for a washout immediately after his delivery but instead he waited until the last second. It's mistakes like this that cost the driver thousands of dollars overtime because he's not being efficient.

Same thing, Old School had a delivery to a facility along with 20 other drivers. Instead of spending his evening in that fine truck stop 10 miles down the road so he could have a nice shower, a restroom, and a nice sit down restaurant, he opted to drive right up to the gate of the facility and park there overnight. By doing so he didn't start his clock like the 20 other drivers, he also got unloaded first which put him available in the early morning and everyone knows that's when the best loads are being handed out. You take every single advantage you can get. If you don't, you're just hurting yourself.

Did that facility allow overnight parking? He told me no. Was parking right in front of their gate and blocking access to everyone so that if the employees wanted to enter they gotta wake him up to move first an action of integrity? You decide, but it was a brilliant move on his part and I would have done the same thing. You take every single advantage you can get out here. I saluted the man when he told me this, not tell him he lacks integrity.

And as I stated before, your 70 hour clock is your paycheck. The more you use it for driving the more you'll make. Why be out here away from family and friends, all alone and lonely, if you're not going to make any worthful profit? Personally, I burn through that clock in 7 days maximum because whenever my clock is full my DM gives me loads that demand 600+ miles per day. So every hour means the world to me. I have actually delivered a load with 5 minutes left on my 70 hour clock with no recap coming.

So guess what? If I wasted any time off of my clock, like a 2 hour trailer washout, then I wouldnt have made that delivery on time. As a matter of fact, since I had no recap coming back I wouldnt be able to deliver it the next day either. So because of my decision to drive two hours I would have been 2 days late for my delivery! For a top tier driver on your DM's board, that is unaccepted. I would rather run a marathon in the winter time than put my DM through that and have that service failure on my driver profile. Every minute matters, and every hour can make or break you when you're running on recaps. Integrity won't deliver that load for you.

Well no ones going to believe that you drove or sat empty for 4 days after your last wash out so I say drive the 63 miles washout and drive back the 71 miles you have plenty of time

Well no ones going to believe that you drove or sat empty for 4 days after your last wash out so I say drive the 63 miles washout and drive back the 71 miles you have plenty of time

Alright, fair enough. Good answer and good logic applied. But its not over yet, still looking for a lot more.

Hi Daniel,

I read your entire "Adventures of Daniel B." thread by the way, good stuff, so I'll take a crack at it...

Use my charm to get friendly with the sheepish washout guy/employee. Get on his good side by empathizing with how things are going in his world and then see if I can talk my way into getting him to print me out a receipt for having my trailer washed out anyway. Find somewhere to park and sweep/scrub/whatever it takes to get that trailer sparkling. Driving 120+ for a trailer washout is not worth it, if I can avoid it. Drive to the Mars plant ahead of schedule, slap on my happy face, look them dead and the eye and say, "Can you take me early?!" My hours of service are extremely relevant but I would rather use them hauling the load rather than driving all over the place for nothing! BAM!

Did I win? Your thoughts..

-Sean

Sean, you looking for a trainer? Haha! Damn, you know how I think.

You are so close. You have the right gameplan. But the employee would never print out a fake reciept for you trust me on that. There's a much easier way without involving anyone else.

Man that was close, impressive. Keep it up guys!

HAHA! I'll take that! I actually am looking for a trainer! I am planning on attending Prime ASAP. I just have to work out a couple of small details before I can go all in. I just realized that I might want to be a truck driver a few weeks ago, so the Lord might be stepping in to calm my excitement because the more I read on TT the more I realize there's information out there that I want to know before I get to Springfield.

HAHA! I'll take that! I actually am looking for a trainer! I am planning on attending Prime ASAP. I just have to work out a couple of small details before I can go all in. I just realized that I might want to be a truck driver a few weeks ago, so the Lord might be stepping in to calm my excitement because the more I read on TT the more I realize there's information out there that I want to know before I get to Springfield.

Hey buddy, you didn't get the answer. Get to thinking!

Anyone else want to give it a try? Keep it up!

HAHA! I'll take that! I actually am looking for a trainer! I am planning on attending Prime ASAP. I just have to work out a couple of small details before I can go all in. I just realized that I might want to be a truck driver a few weeks ago, so the Lord might be stepping in to calm my excitement because the more I read on TT the more I realize there's information out there that I want to know before I get to Springfield.

Hey buddy, you didn't get the answer. Get to thinking!

Anyone else want to give it a try? Keep it up!

I would go to the plant anyway and act like I lost my receipt and brive the guy who questions me about the missing receipt with a quick $50 bucks and hope like hell he falls for it. Daniel you're the truth with your posts my friend!!!,,,,, Now how about that answer I gave you?

D-Wash, you're thinking outside the box which is good. But that's not what I'm looking for. The answer doesn't involve money or bribery.

Keep it going!

That was a close answer but Daniel is right. They won't print out a receipt cause then they would have to account for the money.

No a $50 bribe at the plant won't work either. Food loads get inspected and they found the dirty trailer they will see what guard was on duty and then he would have some questions to answer. He ain't risking his job. Haul a refer trailer long enough and this will happen a few times.

Actually Daniel this is one of your easiest ones.