Question:
What is the longest shift you have had to work in commercial trucking and why and is it common.

Answer:
amounted to about 19 hours. This was due to driving 10 hours and then having to spend the next 9 hours unloading a trailer which entailed sorting and segragating the load.
Most days however amount to around 11 or 12 hours of actual work between driving and doing inspections, fueling and so forth.
Current federal hours of service regualtions state:
A driver may not drive more than 10 hours without taking an 8 hour break.
A driver may not accumulate more than 15 hours of driving and on duty time and continue to drive without taking an 8 hour break. You can continue to work after the 15th hour, you just can not drive.
A driver may not accumulate more than 70 total hours on duty in any 8 day period.
The regs are a little more in depth than this, but it should give you an idea of the limitations placed on drivers by law.
I will always be a mutter trucker at heart.
Answer:
HOS regs change on 4 JAN 04. Once you go on duty you have 14 hours from that time to drive and you can drive only 11 of those hours. You can continue working after 14 hours, but you can't drive again until you take a 10 hour break. The 14 hours includes on duty, driving and off duty time. It can be extended with a sleeper berth break of no less than 2 hours, by the amount of time in the sleeper berth.
Semper Fi,
Wayne

Answer:
2 and 1/2 days, you don't make money if the wheels ain't rolling.
sleep?,it ain't friday yet
Non-union and proud

Answer:
Its not OTR but it pays the bills. Hi! I'm your local trashman and my day is a normal 12 hours a day 5 days a week and home every night. Whoop-eeeee!!! Our hours of service in the sanitation industry is 57.5 hours a week. But we work hard so anymore than that and its unsafe. Driving a trash route consist of a piece of **** old 88 Mack 5 speed truck. These trucks are equiped with a 25yard or 32yard packing unit. It fun!!! No really when I was OTR my average day was about 12. (man I was fat then) unfortunatly I got screwed by the company and ended up throwing trash but at least I get to drive. And I make more money and am home at least 10 hours a night if I'm home by 5pm. I get up a 4am and leave within 45min. then work until 2pm or 5pm or I have as late as 9pm. So if you follow the company rule book that gives you 2 hours to eat, take a shower, and be with family. Well that doesn't normally happen. Most truck drivers are imsomniacs(I think I spelled that right) its in the blood. I mean you can drive anything and do it in your sleep. I think So anyways in all actuality if you can drive at least 8 hours without any fatige within your first month your doing good. At least you don't have to try to get used to it as much. Just remember that no matter how young you are if you are tired and have trouble keeping your eyes on the road them pull over at the nearest safe place and take a 30min nap. Don't listen to the "billy big rigs" and such just do it safe. They can replace the load not you. When you get a dispatch do the math before exepting it no matter what they say. If you drive more than 10 either your stupid or your on something, which is also stupid. If you are looking to become a millionare from OTR, its not gonna happen when you start you will make around 500-600 take home and the longer your with that company the more youll make. But I don't know nothing I'm just a trashman. Anyways I know I went on a little to far, hey but thats okay knowledge is good. Just do what you think is right and have fun with the job I know I do

Answer:
20 to 24 hour driving days do come up from time to time with many carriers. It takes this long to run about 900 to 1000 miles.
If you have problems driving at night, you will not be able to complete such a run safely. Many drivers have difficulty running at night into the early hours of the morning.
The only way you can do these safely, is to get a minimum of 8 hours of solid sleep prior to the run and start your driving without hanging around. Just hanging around makes you tiered.
Don't think about the time, relax, use your cruise control and run steady, "DO NOT SPEED". Speeding will wear you out very fast! It causes stress and fatigue. Stress and fatigue wears you out very fast!
Run relaxed and steady and make sure you had plenty of sleep prior to the run. When you complete the run, "shut the truck down" and catch up on your sleep depravation "before" you run another load.
Many older drivers have lots of experience of running (driving) 24 plus hour days years ago. You had to learn how to manage driving these hours.
Today's environment is very different from years ago. You have 4 plus times the amount of traffic on the road today, both day and night. Most new drivers are not aware of the differences in this environment change from past years.
Most older drivers don't run like that anymore. For one thing. We were younger back then. When your young, you have higher energy levels. As you get older, those energy levels drop off.
The volume of traffic today is just too much to run the 1200 to 1500 miles many of us ran back then.
And "no" most of us didn't use drugs to make these runs, but we did drink a lot of coffee.
[This message was edited by dak1 on August 26, 2003 at 11:43.]