Percentage of miles driven at night.

FDCCRecruiter · Oct 18, 2004

I have a question to ask the expedited driving community on behalf of a driver who is considering moving to expedited running as a single tractor in the Midwest -- how much of your driving time is done at night? (As a company, we do not track this.) Thanks in advance for any insight you can share!

terryandrene · Oct 18, 2004

Welcome! We know y'all've been lurking herein so it's nice to hear from a FedEx Custom Critical hommie.

We spend every bit of half or better of driving our B van during darkness. I suspect a solo tractor driver might have more daylight driving due to them getting those shorter run offers earlier in the day.

RichM · Oct 18, 2004

I agree with Terry. I run a D and when we run team we run at least 50% at night.Last week we had 2 all nighters where we picked up in the AM drove all day and night,delivered the next morning.
When I run single it is usually in the daytime.However you can get into a cycle that will sorta lock you in to either day or night runs based on the HOS rules. If you have a trip that starts in the morning,delivers in the evening you will be out of hours until the next morning,same thing happens if you start a trip at 1900,deliver the next morning,you will be out of hours until the evening. Hope this helps.

NoProblem · Oct 18, 2004

Solo D truck. I do about 85% - 90% night driving and consider myself fortunate when I get to run during the daylight hours.

Seems that usually, the first shift at the most of the factorys I've picked up at actually produces the freight and has it ready for shipping just before quitting time, usually sometime between 4:00pm and 7:00pm.

davekc · Oct 18, 2004

About 50/50
Davekc

Glen Rice · Oct 18, 2004

Thanks FDCC for the honest question and for being concerned enough for asking this forum help in answering the driver honestly. This is something that we felt made FDCC stand above the rest of the companies in the past.
I started driving for Roberts as a team in a "E" unit and in that situation we definetly spent more miles and time thru the night hours. Maybe as a single your day would not be driving all night every night. I personally enjoyed driving at night for all the usuall reasons, less traffic, and scales that more than often than not were closed. It's like everything else it's a personal choice. Good luck and again thanks for trying to answer his question with something more than a quess.

raceman · Oct 18, 2004

My trucks are D units and about 80 to 90% is all night.
raceman

FDCCRecruiter · Oct 18, 2004

Thanks to all for your responses - I will pass them on. Thanks also for the kind words regarding my efforts to get an honest, real-world answer. We really do our very best to be accurate and factual!

redytrk · Oct 19, 2004

At one time I kept track of the time of day most likely to be dispatched.It turned out to be the hours of 3:00 and 4:00 PM.Therefore most runs are night time driving.I am sure we must run 75% night time.

vernon946 · Oct 20, 2004

Welcome, Recruiter!

We too run about 75% nights, and really like it that way because we can usually make better time with less hassles.

With many daytime runs, we frequently get caught in work traffic or game traffic, so nighttime runs are welcomed.

Vernon in C2197