Question about driving for asphalt companies, etc.
 

I've heard that people who drive hauling rock, asphalt, etc., sometimes arrive at work at 6:00 A.M., and somtimes will not get off until as late as 9:00 P.M., and somtimes that may be SIX days a week! :shock:

My question is, how can they put all those hours driving and still be legal? I thought in the logbook you couldn't exceed over 70 hours a week or 11 hours a day! That's too much damn overtime for me. :sad:

And how hard would it be to find a company that DIDN'T have all that much overtime? (I don't mind working some overtime, but not that much overtime.

Because they are local, they don't run a logbook. I'm local and have yet to run a logbook though I could if I wanted to, I'm not required. The company is supposed to keep track of their time and once they get right up against their weekly hours, the company is supposed to give them time off so as not to exceed their legal hours. Let something happen and have DOT come in checking hours at their office's and the gig will be up. One local concrete company was sending drivers home on a Friday because they were at their hours limit for the week during the summer.

From what i've seen over the last 2 years of doing asphalt work, most places don't push that hard around here. Doesn't mean that I haven't had a couple of 16 hour days, but that's only happened twice.

I think the most hours i've had in a single week was like 60 hours, and when you put that many hours in, while driving a truck that beats the crap out of you, you will definitely feel it.

On average I probably work about 47-50 hours in 5 days and we rarely work Saturdays or Sundays. So it is possible to find a paving outfit that won't run you ragged.

Depends where you are, what you're doing for whom. I know asphalt guys around here who run 5:00 AM to midnight, seven days a week during the summer. They spend most of the day waiting in line at the asphalt plant, or waiting in line at the job site. They work way the hell too many hours, and seem to evade imperial entanglements by virtue of some silent code that allows local drivers to run around with steel belts hanging out, 4" holes in their exhaust belching torrents of black smoke, etc. As a road driver, the stuff I see local guys get away with all the time really annoys me, and I know where I'd start hunting if I were a DOT cop. :twisted:

I know a couple of guys hereabouts who run under their own authority, and randomly never give themselves a random drug test too. Infer from that what you will.

Dump buckets more than half scare me, to be honest about it.

We work from 6 in the morning to 8 or later at night sotimes 6 even 7 days a week.

Oh and our trucks are 100% legal.

Do they pay by the hour or by the mile?

A local rock hauler/asphalt anywhere in the US is usually paid by the hour, though some rare one's pay by the loads you run for the week. If you run for a quarry you are paid by the load normally.

The quarry i used to run out of pays its o/o by the ton and all there drivers by the hr. When i did drive a rock bucket in the spring summer and fall you would work 530am to 6 or 7 at night. When winter came you could never get 40hrs most likely you got layed off.

Asphalt/Rock Buckets
 

I've been in asphalt and quarry work for almost 7/8 years now. Quarry work is slack compaired to asphalt (being the hours)! There are pros/cons to both. Hauling rock, you get a little cheaper rate per ton, but might haul 10 + loads a day.....or 4! Hauling hot rocks is a pain in the ass really. Usually crank the truck around 530-600am and sometimes wont turn her off till 7/8/9pm. I was in Northern Va hauling, and the last 2 years we hustled, but it's seemed to taper off this year. Seems like all the mexicans around here done bought trucks and will cut your throat on the $$ just to cover the fuel!

Quarry trucks around these parts all get paid by the ton. Smallest haul I've seen is roughly $2.50 per ton. Yet I had 2 loads yesterday that paid $12.85 a ton. (nice)/(Rare). Most of the quarries around here don't have company trucks, just us independants......as far as the hot rocks go....the company drivers are on the clock, and same thing with the indep. they all get paid by the ton as well. Some asphalt companies even pay "sit time", like we used to get paid after 20 mins on EACH round/trip. So...if the paver broke down, or the job was backed up or just slow....at least your getting something for sittin........Ok...thats my 2 cents......gnite.

Chop

Porkchop, it's not exactly the mexicans out there. It's the fact that VDOT cannot afford to have any roads re-paved and the fact that new construction has just about dried up so we don't have many new roads to pave. I see a lot of NOVA trucks coming down my way to get rock, dirt, sand or whatever else and heading back north or running down around here. The local quarries have already cut hours. Instead of opening at 6 am, they open at 7 am and close at 4 pm instead of 5 pm now. Simply put we don't have any work, that's the main problem. :D