I just finished my OTR training with a trainer. I am in a moral dilemma.
One of the first days out my trainer advised me of how to, what I preceived as, forge my logs. I let it go for a couple of days. But, the more it happened the more it bothered me. We finally had a real serious talk about whether we could continue together. I'm wondering if I was just being nieve to the way the real trucking world runs. I'll give a couple examples below. I'd appreciate some feedback from you guys.
1) HOS rules say that when you are waiting to be loaded or unloaded at a dock, you must log yourself as on duty not driving.
2) The same goes for after you are empty and waiting to be dispatched on another load.
3) Whenever you are completing paperwork related to your work you must log yourself on duty not driving.
These are just a few examples. The longer we were together the more I saw his point that if you follow the HOS rules you will burn up all your hours just sitting and not be able to average even 1,500 miles per week.
Everything I've heard was to not cheat on your logs. That warning kept ringing in my ears.
His point was that that every driver does it and if I don't, I won't make any money.
Help me understand how logging works in the real world. Next week I'll get my truck assignment and be out on my own. I'd like to get my head around this issue before I get out on my own.