What Would You Do? Part 3

OK so I'm probably the newest guy you've got here yet. I don't have my CDL yet and not in a class either but am going to take a stab at this. I was going with the first reply except for the math which would be 55 miles back to the drop off (63 minus 8 not plus) but since that didn't seem to be it my second choice is to ask the attendant where the leak is? Go get my WD-40 and Duct Tape and go fix the leak. Get a free wash for helping them out and my receipt and head to Mars.

Am I any closer?

Its 71 mile cuz you are head north 63 then u head south those 63 miles plus the other 8 miles doesn't matter I wuz wrong lol

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.

So you would sell your soul for $40 or $50? Sorry Daniel but you either have integrity or you don't. Lost a little respect for you on this one.

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.

So you would sell your soul for $40 or $50? Sorry Daniel but you either have integrity or you don't. Lost a little respect for you on this one.

No problem. I don't do it to gain your respect. And I wouldn't sell my soul for 40$ or 50$, you won't make any money on the reefer side driving around unpaid and out of route for washouts. Just remember that these companies do track your out of route miles and that's another reason why getting the washout would cost you even more than wasting hours and money.

And you seem to have missed a key point. There is no wrong answer. Anything you do will get the job done. That's why I call it an opinion/answer. I never said this is the only way to do it. But this is what I would do.

And welcome to the realities of trucking. It's not always pretty and sometimes you have to do things like this. Again, I'm going to work extra hard to regain your respect...

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.

I've parked at a pilot 0.7th of a mile and creeped to my 99 and didn't start my time but after I wuz done my Qualcomm freaked out bout me not being on duty.... How do you do it so you don't get in trouble

Daniel I would just go to the 01 like you. If they don't let me in then I would log into off duty driving. Go get the wash out and get back there. Then hope I don't get caught by logs dept. Plus I am saving my 70.

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

That's what I would recommend, unless you have a "Blue Beacon" or other trailer washout App, and can find a truck wash place closer.

In Breinigsville, PA, (Sam Adams Brewery) I could NOT find the washout place, so I would drive about 30 some miles west to get a washout.

Dave