This 30 minute break isn't so bad.
- Thread starter BigCat
- Start date
Experts say you should walk a minimum of 30 minutes a day and now you have every chance to do it.
Slo-Ride
Veteran Expediter
Now that is impressive; a true case of turning lemons into lemonade. If you turn this new behavior into a habit by doing it again and again, and you see your physical fitness improve, that is huge. The impressive part about this is the NEW behavior that is positive for you.
That said, the 30 minute break isn't so bad ... until it is.
Today, I was on duty or driving beginning at 03:00. When Diane and I completed our delivery in the morning, we did what we usually do after such runs; take a nap. I was asleep for two hours and slept right through the mandatory break the government said I should have. The new rules made no difference today.
But in our case, there will never be a day where they will make a positive difference. I already know how to manage my time, take a break and make sleep my first priority. The only time the new rules will be felt in this truck is when the required break comes at time that is bad for business or forces me to stay out on the road when I might otherwise use that time to park the truck and get not 30 minutes of rest but get started 30 minutes sooner on some better-quality sleep. Or they will be felt when we might want to take a nice, restful, deep-sleep, 34-hour restart but are prevented by the law from that benefit. We can stop but the restarted log book hours are not there to be had.
BigCat, I applaud the wonderful new way you have found to spend your break time. Your body will applaud you too.
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Keep in mind big cat is not doing expedite he is what these rules were created for... Expedite does not even show up on the map
Look at these chains the FMCSA gave me. Aren't they pretty? Why, they're like jewelry! I love them so much!
Incidentally, those who are thankful and grateful that the FMCSA has a mandated 30 minute break in their day because it was just sooo hard to manage to get a break previously, are absolutely affirming the need for the FMCSA to step in and control driver behavior due to a lack of discipline and common sense among those drivers.
Incidentally, those who are thankful and grateful that the FMCSA has a mandated 30 minute break in their day because it was just sooo hard to manage to get a break previously, are absolutely affirming the need for the FMCSA to step in and control driver behavior due to a lack of discipline and common sense among those drivers.
Instead of tossing the rotten apples from the barrel they just decided to make applesauce Of the whole barrel
BigCat
Expert Expediter
Look at these chains the FMCSA gave me. Aren't they pretty? Why, they're like jewelry! I love them so much!
Incidentally, those who are thankful and grateful that the FMCSA has a mandated 30 minute break in their day because it was just sooo hard to manage to get a break previously, are absolutely affirming the need for the FMCSA to step in and control driver behavior due to a lack of discipline and common sense among those drivers.
Not thankful just gotta make the best of what I'm required to comply with.
You have no one fighting for you in Washington so that is all you can do
bubblehead
Veteran Expediter
Actually apple GIN or Moonshine...sometimes it isn't the driver that can't manage their time, it is their dispatcher. One time and only one time did a dispatcher try to push their agenda on me contrary to safe practices...they failed.
As an owner operator you just have to maintain control of what issues that you have..
Just because a customer wants something doesn't mean you have to give it ... just have to have dispatcher to have enough balls to say no it cannot be done
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After a week of running harder then we have run in a long time the 1/2 hour break is still working out. On some loads each of us can get our and walk and on others it is a chance to catch up on computer work.
Glad Big Cat you are making a new plan sounds like a good one!
Glad Big Cat you are making a new plan sounds like a good one!
Whether it is with kicking and screaming or by easy embrace, all drivers who wish to remain in compliance with the law will have to figure out how to make it work. I've never been one to believe that you can't fight city hall, but this is a case, for now at least, where city hall won.
You didn't fight City Hall... That is why you are probably in this situation.... Many years ago you all let this slide and here ya are at this point..... Where the gov has very little or no respect for your opinion.... They will keep bending you over because of your lack of inaction in the past! Truckers have turned into a bunch of government whipping boys.....
WanderngFool
Active Expediter
It wasn't that long ago that 40 hours was the standard work week. Now we work harder and longer to try and maintain the same standard of living.
Drivers are crying because they've been cut back to 70 hours a week and forced to have 30 minutes a day to call their own.
The end result will be that we'll work a little less for exactly the same money. Personally I'd cheer a 60 hour work week and 2 half hour breaks every day.
Drivers are crying because they've been cut back to 70 hours a week and forced to have 30 minutes a day to call their own.
The end result will be that we'll work a little less for exactly the same money. Personally I'd cheer a 60 hour work week and 2 half hour breaks every day.
I would say that's somewhat of an unfair characterization. In the past, and including these new ones, every proposed rule change that hasn't been backed by hard scientific data has been fought, as least by O/Os. Company drivers haven't fought much, because they don't really have much of a standing in most of these proposed changes. The ATA rarely opposes the rule changes, in large part because they help draft them mainly to bring independents in line with large carrier business practices to level the playing field. These new rules were fought by nearly everyone, including the ATA, and the FMCSA didn't even bother to entertain opposing views with any seriousness at all. But the fight isn't over. They'll be challenged in court.
Fought? Oh petition ...email campaign? That has really slowed FMSCA down in the past.
I don't even know what you're talking about. The 40 hour work week has never been the standard in trucking. And in non-trucking and non-farming sectors, the 40 hour work week is and has been the standard since the standard 40-hour work week was established by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
Correct. Trucking is the only industry where the government forces independent small business owners to limit their working hours and earning potential. Imagine that you own your own dry cleaner and the same rules were applied to you. Instead of working from 6AM to 6PM six days a week for 72 hours, and then doing maintenance at night or on Sunday afternoons for another 8-12 hours, which is the normal in dry cleaning, you are now forced to shorten your work hours during the week and not perform work of any kind on the weekends, be it cleaning clothes or performing maintenance. Not only is your way of life altered, but your earning possibilities and thus your earnings are dramatically reduced.
Just one week into the new rules show that, on the average, drivers are working for less time than just the 30 minutes per day the rules might indicate, and are also earning disproportionally less money. The mandated 30 minute break is reducing the number of stops many drivers can make by 1 or 2 per day, and the 1-5 AM rest period during the 35 hour restart is costing many drivers and extra 12-18 hours per week in unavailable work time because their normal restart time doesn't fall so as to allow for two consecutive 1-5 AM periods, so they have to wait until another one rolls around. It's not affecting LTL companies all that much, and it may or may not be affecting expediting that much, but it most definitely is affecting OTR truckers in a big way. Swift, CR England, Con-Way and several other companies have reported reduced productivity and efficiency, and I know for a fact that Paschal Truck Lines lost an average of 6.4 hours per driver last week.
That's because, clearly, you have a union employee mentality rather than the mentality of an independent small business owner.