It is Wednesday morning and I am just taking it easy! I spent yesterday resting and taking a few nice walks in the pleasant but cool weather here in New Albany Mississippi. I've got dispatch directions to head back to Delhi, but I'm not going to leave until around 10 a.m. My experience has been that they won't have a load ready for me until late in the afternoon, so there is no sense in me starting my clock only to have it run out on me before I can get something profitable accomplished for the day. This is where some of my experiences help me be the kind of driver who know how to keep himself available for loads, and helps me manage my available working hours more efficiently.
I could have kept running on my re-cap hours, but I kind of had an ulterior motive in taking this break. Besides the advantages of being more flexible in the game of time management this week it will also help me to make sure I have some hours left next week when it is time to head home for the Christmas Holiday. Several times in the past I have had enough time to get my work accomplished and then I get stuck somewhere for an extra day waiting for my clock to regain some legal driving hours so that I can get home - that is very frustrating, especially if you aren't really even tired. I remember one time I made it to Carthage, TX on my way home and I had to stop and take a ten hour break there before I could drive to my house which was only about an hour and a half away! Such is the life of a Truck Driver.
I'm really looking forward to seeing my dear wife, and my daughters at Christmas.
If you are going home, not under a load, how much trouble would you have gotten yourself into by just driving the 90 mins over?
ReplyDeleteWell, it is possible that I would not have gotten into any trouble. I would have had to get caught by a State trooper to be fined for going over on my hours, and that is pretty unlikely. Still I didn't want to take that risk. The other thing about this situation is that when you get stopped the officer can ask to see your last eight days of logs. So, I I had cheated four or five days ago, he could still potentially catch me at it.
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