When we routinely talk about miles driven per week, are we referring to a 5-day week or a 7-day week ?

 

Call it either a 5 1/2 or 7 day week. The typical OTR driver takes about a day to day and 1/2 off each week be it at home or during a reset.

 

When I was running OTR, running out-of-hours, and forced to do a 34-hour reset in a somewhat decent truckstop (or worse), truckers used to say to me something along the lines of "you just have to get used to the HOS rules and then you'll never run out of hours (and rarely have to do a 34-hour restart)."

To this day I still scratch my head and wonder how guys manage their time so that they rarely need a 34-hour restart while on the road (and still make a decent weekly paycheck). The best that I can figure is that they aren't driving their wheels off...in other words driving a fairly consistent 600+ miles/day (or 10+ driving hours/day)....Either that or they're playing funny with their logbooks....Nahhh...that doesn't happen! :shock: :lol:

 

What happens is that most OTR folks are talking about a 7 day week in which they work. However, to get a true average of miles driven over the course of time you need to figure in the small weeks when you take time off and most don't do that.

It is called logging with a calculator. For me about 4200 is pretty easy to log and make look good on paper, after that it gets a little difficult. If I am out away from home the only thing I want to do is work.

To this day I still scratch my head and wonder why guys want to sit around in a truckstop and watch movies...I so much more enjoy watching movies in my recliner at home and on the widescreen and Bose system.

 

That is all good until you get in a wreck and it is found out you falsified your logs. :lol:

 

Which is illegal. Log it as you drive it.

 

Big Wheels, if you can run to where you hit the 7th day and are just getting up to your 70 hours and not having to take a 34, you can make more than if your running hard everyday and having to do a 34 hour restart. You can do it by running no more than 10 hours a day average for the week. If you can average 50 mph for the day, that's 500 miles, at $.30 a mile that's $150 a day, for 7 days equals $1050. Run your full 11 every day and run out of hours to get your 34 reset while still running an average speed of 50 mph. That's 550 miles a day at the same $.30 equals $165 a day but your out of hours by the 6th day.

It's a personal preference to how you want to run. Some HAVE to run hard everyday and run out of hours due to shippers or receivers being slow. Others just know how to work the system completely legal and not have to take a 34.

 

if you run 10 hours a day you will run out of hours ie 10hr X 7 days = 70hr so you will hove NO hours for the 8th day..! 70hr/8day rule

the only way to not run out of hours is not to have more than 8.75 hours driving and onduty each day.

 

But then, wouldn't the driving time depend upon the time given by despatch for loading & unloading ? I know I'm quite new at this, but I'm really curious to know how one can religiously keep to a driving schedule like you've mentioned, without throwing the p/u & delivery times seriously out of whack.

 

Yeah ok, that's right. I was wayyyy off there :lol:

It will still depend on shippers and stuff as to how you have to run.