Trucking 101: The Straight Dope on Log Books

[Tobin S.]

Here's the skinny on the rules and regs regarding truckers' hours of service and cheating. Stay with me here because this will get interesting, I promise. Log books have four category lines: Off-duty, sleeper-berth, driving, and on-duty-not-driving. When a trucker comes on duty after at least a 10 hour break logged in the off-duty and/or sleeper-berth, and goes to one of the on-duty lines the clock starts on a 14 hour period in which he can drive 11 hours. For example, let's say I get up in the morning after my mandatory ten hour break and prepare myself for another glorious day of truck driving. It's 8am so I go to the on-duty-not-driving line and log a pre-trip inspection after checking my truck over. I have to log at least 15 minutes for that activity. Since I came on duty at 8am I have until 10pm to drive 11 hours in that 14 hour period of time.

So after my pre-trip I start to drive at 8:15am. At 12:15pm I have a minor break down that puts me on the side of the road waiting for a roadside mechanic. I have to go from the driving line to on-duty-not-driving while waiting on the mechanic and while my truck is being repaired. That takes 3.75 hours then I'm on my way again on the driving line at 4:00pm. Since I came on duty at 8am I now have 6 hours left in which I can drive 6 hours. I've lost my potential maximum driving time of 11 hours. Now the most I can drive in my 14 hour shift is 10 hours. The next 6 hours go by uneventfully and I do my post-trip inspection for which I have to log at least 15 minutes. Note: You can work all of the hours you want as long as you don't drive after your 11 hour or 14 hour restrictions. That means I can bust ass down the highway and log 11 hours and 650 miles driving and then be put to work for 6 hours unloading my truck if the receiver requires that, and it's all legal; but I do have to log 10 hours off duty before I can drive again. That has happened to me before and happens to drivers all across the country every day.

Trying to find a truck driver who has never cheated on his log book is like trying to find a virgin in a brothel. I don't do it now days because I have a local job and I rarely work more than 10 hours a day. The 11 and 14 hour rules are never an issue for me. But when I was a long haul trucker, cheating on my log book was just another part of the job. Yeah, it's ridiculous considering you can work 70 hours a weeklegally, but the way things are right now there is a lot of incentive to cheat: truckers are paid by the mile for the most part. The more hours/miles you drive the bigger your pay check. Expecting drivers to adhere to the rules when they get paid that way is a joke and everyone knows it- truckers know it, trucking companies know it, and law enforcement officials know it. They'll all preach compliance until you get caught in a snow storm with that hot load of freight you've got on- just get it there, they don't care how you do it.

So what the hell? Yeah, I'm feeling a little tired, but it's nothing a Mega Gulp size cup of coffee won't fix.

Yes, it's a big problem and I've seen some deadly wrecks due to someone falling asleep while driving both big trucks and cars. Nobody is going to do anything about 4-wheelers driving too long, but there is something that can be done about truckers. Pay them by the hour for every hour they are away from home, and make it a fair wage. Take the incentive to cheat away and no one will cheat.

[burrfoot]

1. I don't have the slightest connection

to the trucking industry (other than being on the road with them); but this was actually a really interesting post. Further, it seems you've hit the nail on the head- like so many other institutions these days, it seems like trucking companies want to preach compliance while ignoring the fact that their structure actually creates incentive for thinly-veneered, widely practiced, non-compliance.

Thanks for putting that out there!

:toast:

[Tobin S.]

2. You're welcome

I wrote that post for people who don't have connections to the trucking industry. :)

[Tobin S.]

3. What do you think? Should I apply for whistle-blower protection?

Kick.

:dem:

[burrfoot]

6. Shit yeah.

:)

[A HERETIC I AM]

4. Are you sure you have to log 15 minutes for the POST trip report?

I know you're supposed to log 15 minutes for the pre-trip walk around, but I can't find any regulation that requires you to log 15 minutes for simply writing up the post trip vehicle condition report and in 20 years of filling out log books, I never logged that time.

Also, for the record, you said "you can work 70 hours a week legally". It is still 70 hours in an 8 day period. I admit, it's a minor point.

I agree with your last paragraph completely. I think all drivers of delivery trucks, be they UPS package cars to OTR 18 wheelers should be Teamsters. If all drivers made a decent, living wage there would be no need for log book violations.

It wouldn't surprise me if at some point the US went to the mandated tachograph like those installed in all European trucks.


They are built in to the dashboard at the factory.

[Tobin S.]

14. That's the way I was taught

Log 15 minutes for both a pre-trip and a post-trip inspection. Log book regulations have changed. I'll have to look it up and see if it's actually law. It may just be company plicy at some places. It doesn't make sense to me to have to do a post-trip insapection, since you will do another inspection after your break without actually moving the truck.

You can actually legally work 70 hours in 5 days now, take a 34 hour break and you have a fresh 70.

[jmowreader]

16. It's just your company's policy

We were told "record 'PT 7 min' on your log, and you won't have to lose 15 minutes of work time." A DOT inspector in Illinois told me the same thing, so apparently it's okay.

[littlebit]

20. No you don't have to log 15 minutes for a post trip

But you do have to flag it. At least that's the way I understand it. I might be wrong.

[jmowreader]

5. The pay issue isn't the only thing that causes illegal logs and cheating

It's a big one, but come on, driver, you know better.

The other issue--and I think it's AS bad if not WORSE than pay--is customer demands. Campbell Soup is a huge malefactor in this, but they're not the only one. They gave me a real simple run: take 43,000 pounds of soup from the Campbell's plant in Maxton, NC, to the Albertson's distribution center in Denver, PA. It's 500 miles. Campbell's gave me ten hours to get there--which would have been great if I didn't have to drive through the DC metro area at rush hour, then drive on the Baltimore beltway. It took 10.25 hours to make the run and they were fucking pissed about that fifteen minutes.

Another load: the company gave me a dispatch to haul 42,000 pounds of Coca-Cola from Massachusetts to New Jersey, and the time I had to make the run would have been PLENTY if they wouldn't have still been making the product when I showed up to get it. It takes one hour to load a truck full of Coke. I sat on that loading dock for FIVE FUCKING HOURS waiting for that shit to be finished. When I went to sign for the load, I asked if they were going to call the consignee and get the delivery appointment changed. "No. The appointment is set. You HAVE to be there at 7am." I got it there but I don't want to think about how.

Another big problem is liveloads (where they unload your trailer while you wait, as opposed to dropping your loaded trailer and hooking to an empty they have for you) into Walmart. Walmart has a 30-minute delivery window. They used to have a 30-SECOND delivery window, but apparently someone got on their ass because too many laws were being violated hauling there. (They've also learned to calculate driving times well--you are going to get plenty of time to make the run.) I have driven past long, long lines of independents sitting outside Walmart DCs waiting for their delivery window to open. Contract hauling into Walmart--whether as a company driver for Swift or someone, or as an owner-operator contracted to a major carrier--is the only way to deal with Walmart because guys dropping and hooking just have to not be late--if you show up three days ahead of time, which has happened to me, they just give you a parking spot for your loaded trailer and the location of the empty one they want you to take.

[Ikonoklast]

10. I do lots of business with Wally.

It's my outbound load every week, a two-stopper in MO and a final in OK. I spend less than two hours at each stop, gate-to-gate.

I was in and out of Wallyworld in 55 minutes with my final today, but, then again, I get there at the allowable one hour before the appointment time, it's perishable product and they always have a door open for me, I unload the product as quickly as I can, get my paperwork and scoot.

I get the fitty for the unload...it's easy money.

They are better than most of the food distributors out there, many of the others I refuse to go to unless I have a load confirmation from the broker or shipper with guaranteed detention time spelled out beforehand.

They might get the 'usual and customary' two free hours, but after that, it's seventy-five an hour, and that's a cheap rate for detention.



Posted from the Flying Hook in Ardmore, OK.

[jmowreader]

18. I think Walmart has the best distribution system around...

There are some things Walmart does very, very well, and logistics is one of them. (This doesn't change the fact they pay their store employees badly, though.) I liked to haul Mattel loads. I had a bunch of them. I was in Texas in September and got this directive: go to Mattel in Fort Worth, pick up a load and haul it to Amazon's warehouse in the Cincinnati area. Deadhead from there to the yard in Vandalia, OH, drop and hook to a load of Christmas seasonal and haul it to the Sears DC in Dallas. Then deadhead to Fort Worth, get another load of Mattel and haul it to the Walmart DC in St. James, MO.

Amazon had to make three phone calls before they'd take the load because they weren't aware it was coming. Then I had to sit for two hours waiting for them to approve the unload. And another three hours waiting for them to get the shit out of the trailer. Once I got to Vandalia (it's just north of Dayton) I hooked to the new trailer and took a 10-hour break.

Walmart? You show up with a drop-and-hook and a delivery appointment number..."oh yes, you are so-and-so, you're carrying this, you were supposed to be here tomorrow at 3pm but that's okay, here's your parking spot, ever been here before? Then go here, take a left, follow the road around, here's a map to show you exactly where to park..." Answer, answer, answer rather than umm, ehh, did we order this?

[littlebit]

21. I got stiffed out of detention time at the Walmart DC in

Johnstown NY a few months ago. They stamped my paperwork to say I was there exactly two hours. It actually took them three and a half to release my trailer. I was so pissed. I tried explaining it to the broker but all he had to go on was Walmarts paperwork.

[Ikonoklast]

23. They were covering their asses, as they were supposed to be finished

unloading within that two hour time frame, as Wally keeps track of how long it takes to unload each load.

If it takes longer than the two hours, it gets flagged and they will ask the shift leader on the dock some hard questions as to why that is; so they stamp the paperwork as done even when there is a problem with the load count or paperwork.

And as far as detention goes, as soon as the two hours are up when I'm at Wallyworld, I call the broker and tell them I do not have the paperwork, and the trailer is still locked in the dock.

I let him call receiving to see exactly what is going on. Then they can either lie to him and tell him everything is done, or explain why it is taking longer than anticipated. Either way, they usually expedite things after that.

You may want to try that next time.

[Tobin S.]

15. No one can force you to drive illegally

It's always the driver's choice to do so.

[Ikonoklast]

7. God Bless St. Cheatum, the patron saint of Loose Leaf Logs.

Without whose benevolence, many a driver would be up a creek.

*cough*


Not me, however, I've never doctored a log book in my entire life.

That would be illegal.

[littlebit]

22. Amen brother

For the record I have never doctored on either. :evilgrin:

[Bucky]

8. I thought you said this was going to get interesting.

I hung in there all the way with you. All. The. Way. I expected some serious pay off like a confession about some Volkswagen full of orphans you ran over during a blizzard or that time you picked up a hitchhiker for the company on some God forsaken stretch of Arizona one night, only to discover (a) she wasn't wearing any panties under that miniskirt and (b) after some provocative banter you suddenly discover she's your second cousin.

Anyway, this doesn't bother me nearly so much when truck divers do this as when surgeons do. You can always sing along with the radio to stay awake while driving and you'll never get tired. But no Big Gulp in the world is gonna un-sever that aorta.

 

[A HERETIC I AM]

9. LOL....

Seriously.

I lol'd

[Locrian]

11. are you for real or did I miss the sarcasm?

Because just about every year on the I-80 toll road 10 miles from my house, you read about a rig that ran into the back of a car and killed everyone because the driver fell asleep, or ran into a cop that had just stopped someone, or.....

[Bucky]

12. You missed the sarcasm.

Except for the surgeon thing. We all hear about it when a trucker pops the wrong number of pills and plows into a overpass. When doctors fuck up and kill somebody, they have a room full of dependent and dependable alibis waiting testify on their behalf that, tragically, there was nothing else that could've been done.

[quakerboy]

13. Ive had more than a few old truckers tell me

it was SOP to carry at least 2 log books.

then again I have an uncle who has spent many steady years working for a company that is devoted to scrapping all the wrekked rigs and salvaging what was salvageable. He has a lotta thermoses.

[TreasonousBastard]

17. It's not just trucks...

Atlantic City bus drivers are paid by the trip, so have no interest in slowing down when the first guys there can run to Philly and pick up another gambling group. The patrons aren't interested in slowing down either, since they're out to play the slots, not take a bus ride. When you hear of an AC bus flipping in a snowstorm, this is why.

Local delivery and courier guys? Also paid by the trip, and often get no sleep if there's another 10 bucks to be made.

Limo drivers? Last airport pickup is a 9PM flight that's two hours late and another two hours to drop off and get back home. Your first morning ride is a 5AM pickup and it's an hour away from home. Was once a limo company that told a guy he was fired if he didn't make that morning ride after being out all night, but their mistake was leaving the message on his answering machine. The message was still there after he fell asleep and killed the passenger in the wreck.

None of these jobs require logbooks or have much in the way of rules.

[Tobin S.]

19. You're right

Hence my little jab at the end about no regulations for 4-wheelers. But I just know trucking, so that's what I write about a lot. I really don't know what can be done about regulating other modes of transportation.