Hours of Service, Not Drive Time!

Professional Drivers who want to consistently deliver on time need to focus their trip planning on hours of service, not drive time.

Are you making the number one mistake being made by almost everyone in the trucking industry; trip planning based on drive time rather than trip planning based on hours of service?

#ProfessionalDrivingSchools are teaching it, #AppDevelopers are still building apps based on it, #Dispatchers are still assigning loads based on it, #Shippers and #Receivers are still tracking loads based on it, and it's been a consistent cause of stress and frustration throughout the trucking industry for years.

We have always been taught that we could easily determine the time it takes for anything to travel from one place to another mathematically by simply using a formula to calculate the Estimated Time of Arrival, (Distance / Speed = Time). When walking, running, riding a bike, throwing a ball, or even driving a car, everything can be timed based on this formula. For most things, it gives a perfect solution. But, Don't be misled! This does not work for Professional Driving when seeking to determine your ETA to your destination.

The formula, (drive time as it is referred to in the trucking industry) has not worked to assist Professional Drivers in planning trips since the Hours of Service for Drivers Final Rule on February 27, 2012, and the compliance date of it's remaining provisions on July 1, 2013. Why? Because Professional Drivers have restrictions that interrupt the formula called "Hours of Service Rules".

For years drivers have compensated for the belief that the root of the on-time delivery problem rested on them and resulted to manipulating the hours of service requirements by changing their logs to add back the time they needed to complete the run. Now, they can't cheat on their logs anymore!

After numerous injury's, incidents, accidents, and major court cases exposing hours of service violations as the root cause, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (#FMCSA) decided enough was enough and mandated the Electronic Logging Device (#ELD) with a compliance date of December 18, 2017 to prevent drivers from manipulating their hours of service clocks. And yet,

Many Professional Drivers still take chances believing that the Company they drive for does not allow them to turn down loads that may be unsafe or cause them to violate the Federal Hours of Service Rules and expect that they will be terminated or left sitting in the truck stop without loads if they do. Who is it that's willing to take the fall for this, the Dispatcher manipulating them to accept loads that they can't legally deliver, or the Trucking Company, while knowing that Section 405 of the Surface Transportation Assistance Act (#STAA) enacted in 1982 provides protections for Professional Drivers reporting this retaliation?

Trucking Companies have already found out the hard way when the United States Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (#OSHA) in one case had them to pay a Professional Driver back wages of $23,203, plus interest, $50,000 in compensatory and $50,000 in punitive damages and reasonable attorney's fees and in another case more than $276,000 in back wages, damages, and forced them to take other corrective actions such as re-instating the driver.

The Bottom Line:

The hours of service rules require that all work while not driving such as vehicle inspections, loading, unloading, and fueling be recorded in your logs. Furthermore, Professional Drivers have a limited number of hours that they can work or drive and are required to take mandatory rest breaks. Because of these restrictions, everyone in the trucking industry need to once and for all realize that Professional Drivers cannot be expected to turn the switch, start driving, and go directly from start to finish based on the drive time calculation.

Professional Drivers need to trip plan based on hours of service, not drive time.

Get Access to the Truckers Trip Planning App and Use the Hours of Service Calculator to help determine whether you have the required hours of service and whether you can successfully deliver your load on time before accepting the load.

Hours of Service Calculator

The Hours of Service Calculator from the Truckers Trip Planning App allows solo and team truck drivers to recap their hours of service to see how much time they have available to run a load and the remaining hours of service they will have after they run the load.

As Professional Drivers, we all know that the most stressful part of driving is the constant race you have with time and it stands to be the reality that no matter how fast you drive, time will always win that race. Based on that fact alone, your safety and the safety of all those around you is dependent upon your ability to eliminate the risk of driving while under the tremendous stress of trying to reach your destination before time runs out on you.

Needless to say, stress is the root cause of driver fatigue, driver injuries, accidents, and road rage. With the developing of the Truckers Trip Planning App, you now have access to the tools you need to get at the root of this problem.

While most truck drivers would argue that they don't need an hours of service calculator since they can get their remaining hours of service from their logging device, it is obvious that they have not yet realized that "eliminating the need to race time and the elimination of not knowing if you can deliver your load on time" is an essential element in eliminating unnecessary stress while driving.

The Hours of Service Calculator is included on the Dispatchers, Company Drivers, Leased, and Owner Operator Truckers Trip Planning Apps and it is very simple to use.

The #HoursofServiceCalculator the #TruckersTripPlanningWorksheet and the #HoursofServiceETACalculator from the Truckers Trip Planning App works together to help you see what the load requires and whether or not you have the remaining hours of service to fulfill those requirements. Your Electronic Logging Device doesn't tell you that.

All you will have to do Initially is to copy your 8 days log from your ELD and record it on the hours of service calculator and (if necessary) check the date of your last reset. This is the same approach no matter what #HOSRules you use. From there, each night at midnight when the day changes over, the date, hours, and minutes will drop down to open up day 8 for you to record your new hours. Unless you do a total reset this information is forever persistent and feeds into the Hours of Service ETA Calculator for load related calculations.

While it may seem unnecessary, the Hours of Service Calculator is an integral part of the #ETACalculator and together they can help you to eliminate unnecessary stress.

Get Access to the Truckers Trip Planning App and Use the Hours of Service Calculator to help determine whether you have the required hours of service and whether you can successfully deliver your load on time before accepting the load.

How To Read The Hours Of Service ETA Calculator!

Learn how to read the Hours of Service ETA Calculator from the Truckers Trip Planning App, determine whether you have the required hours of service for the load, and determine the remaining hours of service you have left for your next load.

Objective: Determine if you should accept the load based on the #hoursofservice requirements, reject the load, or inform your dispatcher that the load will need to be relayed to another driver.

To learn how to use the Hours of Service ETA Calculator we will use the following scenario:

On September 2, 2018 you did an #hoursofservicerecap to determine you had 4 hours and 11 minutes left on your 70 hour clock. On September 2, 2018, you received your dispatch and updated the Truckers Trip Planning Worksheet with your dispatch requirements which required you to drive 15 miles from your current location to your pickup appointment on September 3, 2018 at 08:00 a.m. You had a delivery window scheduled for September 4, 2018 at the latest time of 11:59 p.m. which was 648.3 miles East of your pickup which required you to cross 1 time zone. You indicated that you would need 1 - 30 minute fuel stop and because this was a live load you selected 1 hour each for loading and unloading. You planned the trip at 50 miles per hour and you selected 2 stops for the load.

Without the Truckers Trip Planning App and the #HoursofServiceETACalculator, you would probably be stressing now trying to figure out how you will run this load with only 4 hours of service remaining and if you accepted it, you would probably be under stress the entire run worrying about it.

However the beauty of having the Truckers Trip Planning App and the Hours of Service ETA Calculator, is that you can quickly see if it is at all possible to run this load and relieve yourself of that unwanted stress in less than 5 minutes.

The Fact is that if you can start your clock on time, you can run this load, deliver it 13 hours early, and have 4 hours and 35 minutes left on your 70 hour clock after you run the load.

1. According to the Hours of Service Recap Calculator, you have 4 hours and 11 minutes left on your 70 hour clock.

2. Based on the total distance of 663.3 miles driving 50 miles per hour you will need 13 hours and 16 minutes of drive time for the load.

3. To reach your pickup on time you will need to start your clock on September 3, 2018 at 06:42:54 a.m. do your first pretrip, fuel and then drive 18 minutes to your pickup.

4. At your pick up you will need to load for 1 hour and start driving to your delivery.

5. During your trip you will have to stop for an 8 hour break, do your first post trip, and take a 10 hour rest break. Get up the next morning and do your second pretrip. Then continue driving to your delivery.

6. On September 4, 2018 you will arrive at your delivery and use 1 hour to unload, and 30 minutes for your second post trip.

7. You will be available for another load at 11:57 a.m. on September 4, 2018.

Hours of Service Required:

The load required 13.27 hours of drive time (663.3 /50) and another 4.5 hours of on duty not driving time (2-30 minute pretrips, 2-30 minute post trips, 1-30 minute fuel stop, 1-hour to load, and 1-hour to unload) which resulted in a total of 17.77 hours of service to run the load.

Total Overall Hours Required:

Based on the 17.77 hours (17 hours and 46.2 minutes) you had to take 1-8 hour required break and 1-10 hour required break and 1-hour was added because you traveled East and crossed 1-Time Zone which added 11.5 hours (11 hours and 30 minutes) to the trip that was required but not reportable as hours of service. This made the trip require 29.27 hours (29 hours and 16 minutes).

Accounting of Run Time:

You started at 6:42 on September 3, 2018, at 8:00 a.m. on September 3, 2018, 1 hour and 18 minutes elapsed. You arrived at 10:27 a.m. on September 4, 2018 in a different time zone. 27 hours, 46 minutes, and 54 seconds had elapsed. You were ready for your next load at 11:57 on September 4, 2018, 29 hours, 16 minutes had elapsed.

Accounting For Your Hours of Service:

You started with 4 hours and 11 minutes and gained 18 hours and 10 minutes while running the load. You gained 9 hours and 13 minutes on September 2, 2018 at midnight. At midnight on September 3, 2018, you gained 8 hours and 57 minutes. This resulted in you having 22.35 hours (22 hours and 21 minutes) available for the load. The load required 17.77 hours (17 hours and 46.2 minutes) This results with you having 4.58 hours (4 hours and 35 minutes) available for a new load.

What To Watch:

If the new Hours of Service Available would have been negative then of course you would not have been able to legally run this load.

Super Truckers have told me that they don't need the Hours of Service ETA Calculator because they can do this in their head in 30 minutes. What do you think?

Don't stress yourself out! Get Access to the Truckers Trip Planning App and Use the Hours of Service ETA Calculator to determine whether you have the required hours of service and whether you can successfully deliver your load on time before accepting the load.