Yesterday afternoon as I headed homeward for the weekend I got to thinking how a breakdown on the day before the reset could really screw things up for a driver under this stupid 168 hour rule. If I broke down en-route home and didn’t get back untill after 01.00am next day it would mess up every reset for the foreseeable future. because it would then mean I could not start before Monday mornings … low and behold as I turned onto rt 149 in NY my damm compressor pipe broke, I managed to get to Ft Ann truck stop, and logged out, I called it in, Kate drove down and got me and now my weekend is ruined because I have to sit about and wait for whoever they get to come out on a Saturday. What if I had broken down further south ? … My future resets would be done for … F*****g stupid FMCSA idiots.
FMCSA = Federal Mess Created by Stupid ■■■■■■■■
Got a call from a mechanic about 2 hours ago and went to the truck to meet him, NOT IMPRESSED to say the least, nice friendly bloke who shimmied under the truck from behind the left fuel tank and up to the compressor, found the broken braided air line, swore and cursed and isn’t looking foreward to replacing it “Isss gonna be darned expensive ar cun tell ya”
“Don’t bother me mate, I am ot paying, can it be done here ?”
“Yep, gonna take hours, thas if ar cun get the part”
He made several calls but founr nobody open to make the bit up. I called the company and I get the just keep us informed, I suggested getting the later Monday load to go in early in my place and that would give this guy more time to fix it early Monday morning ? “Yes, good idea, call us Monday morning then”
by which time it will be too late to get the other guy to do the 7 hour drive, plus 30 minute break, plus stopping at some grossly overcrowded Pilot for fuel. In the mean time the manager who is a really good guy tells me “Don’t forget to note every hour you spend on this”
Don’t worry, I won’t.
What caused it Pat?
It wasn’t a stray bullet was it?
newmercman:
What caused it Pat?It wasn’t a stray bullet was it?
Yeah can just hear them now… “Hey Homeboy dats his compressor, you ****ed that muvva up bigtime, he aint comin back to dis hood no time!!”
jonka:
newmercman:
What caused it Pat?It wasn’t a stray bullet was it?
“Is it cos I is Pat. Westsiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiidddddddddeeeeeee”
Very funny
All it was is a hole in the line from the compressor that had rubbed on the frame. The guy who came out yesterday wasn’t looking foreward to removing it because of where it was situated. Last night I was walking aroung Lake George village after a meal and a few cold one’s with the missus when at 10.00pm my phone rings and it’s him, he had been working in that heat removing the water/fuel separator and the steering fluid res to then remove the whole line and would call me later today to let me know when he has finished re-assembling it all.
I’ve been thinking the same thing Pat. My new job is generally Monday to Friday. Some of their guys run out on a Sunday if they want to, which I don’t, but should I ever have to run in on a Saturday morning which can happen now and then, I’d never even have the option ever again to run out on a Sunday unless I didn’t log a reset and then ran the next week on my rolling over hours, which is something I hate doing, I just like starting a new week with a full set of 70, without having to go back and calculate 70/8 days etc. This new rule is a complete crock of crap. Hopefully with this new rule potentially effecting so many people and operators it will get chucked out in due course, its not like its actually serving any purpose other than adding another layer of bureaucracy for the sake of doing so.
I don’t understand this ‘Rolling over hours’ stuff ? If we can only work 70 hours out of 8 days how can we roll over hours to work the following week ? Drivers at work say the same thing, “I’ll just roll my hours over” is what I hear.
Getting back to my broken truck … I was waiting for the call from the mechanic tonight and got nothing, drove out to my truck and there was no sign of him and opening the door found half the devices needed to run it on the floor and an entire quater fender on the passenger side Don’t think I’ll be going anywhere in a hurry tomorrow.
70 hours in 8 days is a constantly rolling thing. Just like if you only ever do 8.75 per day, at the end of day 8 you’ll regain 8.75 from day 1 etc. Obviously this is no good if you’re hitting your 70 before 8 days, which most people would.
Its early days in my new job so far but I’m not doing that much driving time in a week, I’ve done two weeks so far and only worked 4 days in each week, we make a lot of our money on picks and drops. So if in any given week I do lets say 50 hours and fall foul of not being able to have a reset on the weekend because a previous trip messed that up by finishing too late, then that’ll leave me 20 hours on a 70 and on the Monday night of said week, I’ll regain whatever I did the previous monday and hence roll over on my hours, so long as I never go over 70 hours in 8 days as I move a day forward at a time, then come Friday I’ll start a reset as it’ll have been almost two weeks since the last recorded reset.
Does that make sense? I’m reading it back to myself and I’m not sure it does.
robinhood_1984:
70 hours in 8 days is a constantly rolling thing. Just like if you only ever do 8.75 per day, at the end of day 8 you’ll regain 8.75 from day 1 etc. Obviously this is no good if you’re hitting your 70 before 8 days, which most people would.
Its early days in my new job so far but I’m not doing that much driving time in a week, I’ve done two weeks so far and only worked 4 days in each week, we make a lot of our money on picks and drops. So if in any given week I do lets say 50 hours and fall foul of not being able to have a reset on the weekend because a previous trip messed that up by finishing too late, then that’ll leave me 20 hours on a 70 and on the Monday night of said week, I’ll regain whatever I did the previous monday and hence roll over on my hours, so long as I never go over 70 hours in 8 days as I move a day forward at a time, then come Friday I’ll start a reset as it’ll have been almost two weeks since the last recorded reset.Does that make sense? I’m reading it back to myself and I’m not sure it does.
I tried that 8.75 hours recap… on the first day i think i had done 11 hours before i had even noticed i had gone over 8.75 hours… doh!, it became such a mess i gave up after 3 days. 
robinhood_1984
We ,in the UK ,thought our 15 hour days took some working out,with 9 hours off,and in some cases having to compensate your rest hours and that’s without splitting your rest or taking it on ferries. It now seems so simple!Not even the WTD rules will worry us now.
How, in heavens name do you work with that roll of barbed wire ,called hours regulations over there? Who dreamed that lot up ,is it a new way of using less diesel,and what bright■■? spark made sure that when you have to take time off like that, it’s not when you are at home !!
Philladelphia lawyer springs to mind!
Cheers Bassman
In any 8 day period including the present day you cannot have logged more than 70hrs on line 3 or 4 of your log book.
So if you count back the previous 7 days and add up the totals, whatever the balance between that figure and 70 is will tell you how many hours you can drive that day.
So if you run 11.5hrs every day and nudge the 70 on day six, you are going to need a couple of days off to get any time back.
It will cause problems if you do maximum hours every day or if you do forty (or so):hour trips where you were resetting in between.
It’s a [zb]ing mess and will mean drivers will be either working a lot less or never getting home.
You will bump into the 70 very quickly if you do big days, then hang around in a truckstop until you pick hours back up, then as soon as you run hard again you’ll hit the 70 again and grind to a halt.
Total insanity…
In a way I am glad we have elogs because it does all the working out for you. On the bad side it is NOT giving me the correct ‘next restart’ times, it has shown my next restart at the same time every week, which is wrong, because I have started earlier and it isn’t reflecting that, I have talked to the lady in safety who just doesn’t seem to understand what I am saying, and gives me the “It’s 168 hours from the previous start of your break”
“I know that but this is giving me 174 hours from that time” … The phone is then hung up 
To be honest, I doubt many will be affected by it, the amount of drivers that spend days sitting waiting for loads, it’s a wonder they ever need a reset anyway
It’s mainly going to mess up the coast to coast type guys who will eat up the hours then spend day’s off that will not count. In my job it’s nerve racking every Friday. I have to plead with Domino shipping office to bring foreward the loading time on my load which is usually scheduled to be loaded about 7.00pm, it takes up to 3 hours to load because it is special sugar, it has to be constantly tested then sometimes the whole load has to be shaken then re-tested. If I am not out of there by 5.00pm, with traffic going north on a Friday evening, stopping for fuel etc it can be pushing luck to get home and off duty in time to get my regular reset in and enable me to make the usual Sunday night delivery, admittedly the past two week’s including this week have me delivering on Monday mornings, but if I have to change thet reset to include Sunday 01.00 to past Monday 05.00 it will screw everything up. My job is based on being able to deliver on Sundays when needed, my minimum weekly pay is based on me being available from Monday to friday, if I have to take 34 off midweek, the minimum wage will be withdrawn in no time.
This new law is a load of crap, e-logs are a load of crap, mileage pay is a load of crap but for once this is going to have to be the companies problem and they can suffer the consequences of sitting by as an industry and allowing this farce to become law without hardly a chirp of protest. You’ll just have to start running in on Saturday mornings and starting at a civilised time on Monday morning or they’ll have to re-schedule things for you at their end. The days of the driver being able to make up for other peoples incompetence are fast drawing to an end with draconian EU style minute by minute surveillence and enforcement of driving hours. Mark my words though, as much as we think this new development is bad, there will be worse to follow. We all know once those in power get a taste of the law book and the feeling of empowerment it gives them, the ink wont long be dry until the pen is once again set to ill use.
Perhaps they ought to just fast track everything, abolish NAFTA and apply to join the EU.
Robin, try explaining that to the customers like Ben & Jerry’s who have laid off their entire production team for 2 days because nobody can deliver their sugar on Sunday’s due to this stupid law.
I have no idea what idiot came up with this law but he will go down in history as the person who contributed more to destroying te ecconomy of the USA than any other man in time gone by … Costs are doing to shoot through the roof for every item after a short spell, drivers will be leaving companies in droves and who will bear the brunt ? … Us, the consumers.
Absolutely nothing will happen, Pat. Drivers wont leave in droves because North Americans will seemingly put up with any amount of poor working conditions and be thankful for it and if they do leave, they’ll be replaced by Pavel and Boris in their Illinois registered Volvo’s or by the seemingly unlimited supply of African Americans who get sucked up by the big fleets with paid for training and thence get treat like crap all over again because they’ve signed a retention contract that means they have to pay back a fortune in training costs should they leave, in this great industry with its stupid turnover that every one talks about but fails to act upon.
I keep hearing from drivers in the US that this law was the brainchild of some kind of politician from New Hampshire, any more than that I dont know. Every one will adjust though, no one will kick up a fuss, work patterns will be changed, drivers will earn less and be away longer for it and management will still be on the same money and work 9-5 and will forget the whole thing with the click of a pen. I bet your superiors in the office on their hourly pay or salary wont be fretting about this as much as you are.
robinhood_1984:
I keep hearing from drivers in the US that this law was the brainchild of some kind of politician from New Hampshire, any more than that I dont know. Every one will adjust though, no one will kick up a fuss, work patterns will be changed, drivers will earn less and be away longer for it and management will still be on the same money and work 9-5 and will forget the whole thing with the click of a pen. I bet your superiors in the office on their hourly pay or salary wont be fretting about this as much as you are.
As usual it probably goes a ‘bit’ higher up the chain of command than that to the control freak who’s in charge of the White House.The Obama administration is obvioulsy all about going for the full on Euro option of what are effectively tachograph regs and speed limiters and you can bet that they won’t stop at the idea of a federal 65 mph limit they’ll bring back the old 55 mph just as soon as they’ve managed to get everyone used to the new regime with the difference that unlike the 1970’s/80’s this time the idustry is mostly supportive of the changes and there’ll be no going back. 
If it was me I wouldn’t even think of going over there now and if I was there I’d probably be on the first plane home. 