Question:
Just wanted to know how the new HOS was affecting all u OTR drivers so I can know what to expect when I decide to go back OTR. I read one of the articles on the home page a lot of people arent to happy about it.

Answer:
My personal take on it is that, it was just plain more relaxing to know that if you "wanted/needed" to stop you could do so without it affecting your trip plan greatly. Now {it seems as if} <-remove that- you are running against the 14hr clock. You have to do it ALL in 14hr.
I personally like to run my day like this.
Get up, have some coffee. Drive for about an hour or two, stop get something to eat. Even though I eat in the truck, it's nice to stop and eat! Get a shower, drive for anywere from 4 - 7 hours, stop get something to eat. This is usually the big meal of the day, soup or something like that. At this point I need a nap, something about the "big meal" does that to me. So, nap for an hour or maybe even two!!!! Then drive out the rest of the day.
I know someone will nitpick this and say, well, you should be able to do it all in 14hrs. Sometimes it just isn't so!
Also, I got a dispatch to pick up a load at 12pm and deliver it at 04am the next morning. Yup, that's 16 hrs.
And no, I'm not telling you what I did.

Answer:
Gone are the trips when you can just "take your sweet time down the road!"
I have family in Minnesota just off I90 & I35, use to be able to stop and visit for a few hours or even over night. Only did this on runs that I had the time, no pressure! Not sure now if I will be able to this again!
I'm a stickler on pre-planning, always try to arrive with maximum hours to drive, so I knew how much time I could set idle, for whatever reason!
Now we are faced with pick-up deadlines, delivery deadlines, and now stuck in between, driving deadlines! Sounds like it will be alot of hard driving, defeating the purpose of a rested truckdriver!
My other problem with the 14 hour clock is, I like to go into the consignee in the wee hours of the morning to avoid traffic, kind of hard to do that now what with the clock ticking!
The rest of the changes are fine by me:
10 hour break-there a times it may get in the way, but there were times when 8 did the same!
11 hours to drive- I'll use it if needed, but not planning on it! 9 to 10 is usually enough!
34 hour reset- this one makes alot of sense to me, home for 3 days, why not start fresh!
I kew these changes were coming, and thought I would be ok, but untill I had to make that first delivery in downtown Chicago, it was a real slap in the face!
Oh well, hopefully others will see the error in this and "tweak" it a bit!
Lets see, 34 hour reset now that I've been home, start the morning with a fresh 70, plus add in the 19.75 hours i get back from last week, I'll have 89.75 hours to start the next week, right?!
Drive on! bandit58....

Answer:
I know your kidding about the 89hrs avail.. er
I hope your kidding.... anyway.
I just drove 7hrs straight, well, one tire check, and yes it was leaking some type of unidentified liquid, possibly recycled coffee, but not sure.
I fueled, and am taking an hour break, and will do another 3 hours of driving before calling it a day. This gets me to the other side of Dallas, "beat the traffic game". I am trying to cover ground and rotate my 14hr window backwards, to facilitate the "am" delivery at the other end. Now, I have plenty of time with over 1800 miles left on the trip, but, I like to get there the night before and have my hours available as well.
Another interesting note. I am finding that I feel the "need" to be at the delivery location, not at the nearest logical stopping place, but, right there at it. So that my day can begin without affecting the "window" as much.
The "must shower at the end of your 10" is a pain in the but as well. If you shower any other time, it seems to cost you drive time or window adjustment time.
Oh, well. Like you say, hopefully it gets "tweeked"

Answer:
I reset my 70 twice trying to get across Oregon last week.
Too many hours......not enough road
Look at it this way: The way turnover is in the trucking industry, another year or two and no one will even know what the "old hours" were.

Answer:
I took 68 hrs. off so I get 140 this week, right?

Answer:
....DOT will come up with that rule after their six-month review.
Seriously, they might as well get rid of the 70-hour all together. Just give us 14 hours a day and let us go hog-wild. Why not? We have to take 10 hours off every day anyway.

Answer:
about that turnover thing, I was thinking about that and how it wouldn't effect the newbies as much as the experienced drivers running off the old HOS since they started. It seems to me that there would be more of a rush on the truckers which could cause even more serious wrecks than a fatiged driver but I not the one in control. Just in that last couple of days I started noticing more trucks parked on the side of the interstate and where I live(OHIO) you all know that the speed limit is 55 for trucks( I personally think its stupid and go 65 anyways but whose gonna pull over a trash truck) which doesn't help you make any time through OHIO. I read one of the news posts on the home page and a lot of companies arent liking it much. The big problem I see that could happen is between the carriers and there costumers. The carrier has to comply with the new rule but the costumers don't so if they don't work together that just means one more headache for the trucker who is trying to juggle time. Personally I don't really see any good in it and the old HOS were just fine. The only reason some guy in a suit whose hasn't even touched a vehicle bigger than a yugo would change these rules is because of those drivers who either ain't carefull enough or smart enough to just stop and rest even if running on false logs and run themselves to where they fall asleep driving. One person has to ruin it for everyone else. Me I don't care even if I'm driving my car if I'm tired and can't keep it in a lane I'll pull over and rest. Common sense whats more important money or your life or others. Thats all I got for now. keep them coming

Answer:
chevrolet_gt
I agree -- if everyone ran responsibility there wouldn't be any need for these regulations. But I think it speaks worse for the trucking companies than the drivers as a whole. Who knows how "safe" some of us might be if the industry didn't push driving schedules past common sense human indurance.
Constant jet lag makes you stupid. The average person makes worse decisions when their sleep cycle is all over the map. They're never really rested, and therefore, making poorer decisions than someone who maintains a 24-hour sleep clock.
To the extent compliance and enforcement "improves" over the next decade or so, it may actually improve some quality of life conditions (although I don't think it will lead to higher overall wages, even if we get paid by the hour).
But when that day comes, and there's some black box in every unit, a whole culture of old time truckin' will have passed into history. It's sad in that way, and I'm glad I got to drive in these good old days - such as they are.

Answer:
split logging is the answer and it is working. just use those 2 mandatory sleeper birth periods and make sure they total 10 hours. living on line 1 anymore is a killer.

Answer:
I split berth also. Works real good for me, as I usually nly sleep for 5 hours anyway. Only had one bad incident. I arrived at the consignee after about 8 hours driving at 2100. They were closed and I couldn't deliver until 0800 the next day. That meant going into the sleeper, for over 10 hours, then delivering at 0800 and restarting my 14 hour clock, with no load prearranged. I made my delivery and then drove to a nearby truckstop and sat and waited for dispatch to find me something. At about 1400, they got me some work, so I even if I logged the preceeding 6 hours in the sleeper, they couldn't be combined with the previous sleeper period, as it was already over 10 hours. If DOT were to check it, they would certainly think something was up, with back to back sleeper berth times totalling 17 hours seperated by only an hour. To avoid raising suspicion, I logged it as it was, off duty and my 14 hour clock ended at 2200 that night, forcing me to stop for the night. I really prefer driving at night, so it does at times force you to do things you don't want to and I agree it will at times defeat the puropose of creating more alert, wide awake drivers. I do like the 70 hour reset, though. Our dispatchers are just a skeleton crew on weekends and we normally have to stop for over 34 hours, unless we're already under a load on Friday.
Semper Fi,
Wayne

Answer:
I don't do splitting well if I have to sleep less than 5 continous hours often. Splitting is a last resort for me I guess cause I like eight hours deep sleep every day. The diffrence in mental energy is worth not pusing myself into splitting my daily sleep unless I absolutely have to. Also for our dispatch, it's best to look immediately available to drive eleven continous hours when they select our next load .....and I'm lazy for this new sleep thing you can do on a continous ten hour break....

Answer:
I haven't found it to be the end of the world as everyone predicted but I have run into a few snags. One is that 10 hour break... It's caused me some problems with early appointments, having to shut down earlier than I wanted to in order to make it. This isn't that big of a problem in itself, the problem is parking on demand like that.
The 14 hour rule almost got me a few times. Weather, and slow dock workers put me up against it twice.

Answer:
As I posted on the R/T, I did 3449 mi. my first week under the new rules.
No split breaks, 14 and 10.
Required one re-scheduling, otherwise no problems.
It does require you to be a bit more careful planning your run.
Other than that, in my opinion, most of the crying you hear is drivers making a mountain out of a molehill.
As has always been in this industry, the slightest change or new thing throws the average driver into a panic, and convinces him or her that the world is going to come crashing to a standstill, and we're all gonna die a horrible death.
Humans require a brain--too bad use is optional

Answer:
There's a psycholigical term. I think it's called "resistence to change".