Time is of the essence

I didn’t even understand what had gone wrong.

I was rapidly running out of available driving hours. There was no way that I would be able to make it to the consignee with the amount of “run-able" (legal) hours that I had left. I pulled over alongside the Interstate and sent a frantic Qualcomm message to my Driver Manager telling her that I would not be able to deliver on time. She called me up on my cell phone and was pretty angry, short and snippy. I was told that another driver would be taking my load to Portland. After she hung up on me, I felt very humiliated. 

I had just completed a very productive and busy week. My last delivery for the week was to a Lowe’s store in Boise, ID. When they were finally finished unloading my trailer, I only had about an hour or so left on my clock. I took my stinky self and my truck to the nearest truck stop; only about ten minutes away and shut down. I was within an hour of officially running out of time.

The D.O.T. clock rules everything that I do. The moment that I begin the work day, I change the Qualcomm from “Sleeper” mode to the “On Duty” setting. That begins my 14 hour clock. Once started, that 14 hour clock cannot be stopped until it runs out. Contained within that 14 hour time period are my 11 hours of driving time. I can start and stop the 11 hour driving clock as much as I like, in order to, say, eat a chimichanga or to go visit the potty. It just all has to be done within a defined 14 hour time period. (When those 14 hours are up, you have to shut down for 10 hours; whether or not you've been driving.) Fun fact: the electronic 11 hour driving clock cannot be cheated; once the truck starts rolling, it senses that you're moving and automatically switches to “Driving”.

There are only so many 14-hour clocks available. You are only allowed to work 70 hours before the D.O.T. clock has used up all of its available hours for the week. To continue, you are required to take a “reset”. A “reset” is a 34 hour period of time when the truck and the driver cannot work. There is well-founded concern that truck drivers are working excessive hours and, because of that are sleep-deprived and a real menace to themselves and others. It is my belief that, without enforcement of the “hours of service” regulations, that the Trucking Industry would run its drivers to death, literally.

I had parked my truck at the T/A Truckstop in Boise just after 9:00 am and was prepared to sit for 34 hours. It was not to be that simple, however. There are some brand new rules, rules that just came into effect on July 1^st. Now, the 34 hour reset must include two consecutive periods of time between 1:00 and 5:00 am. My reset would instead be completed at 5:00 am, two days later. I would be stuck sitting in a crummy truck stop for almost two whole days.

But I got through that, and on the correct evening just before bed, I had set my iPhone’s alarm to wake me up at 4:30 am. When it woke me up, I took my sweet time to visit the restroom, get a cup of coffee and read my email. At about 5:30, I changed my status to “On Duty”, did my pre-trip and headed out on the road. Everything was right with the world, except for my DOT clock.

This is where I screwed up.

The D.O.T. clock on the Qualcomm unit was set to Pacific time, but my iPhone had switched over to Mountain time. It was not 5:00 am yet. Whoops! I had started my DOT clock about a half hour too early and had destroyed my 34 hour reset and I had run out of time by simply being stupid and forgetting about the time zone change. And no, you don’t get your full 70 hours back until you do another 34 hour reset. You do get “refunded” a few hours each day (due to a complicated exception that is far too dull to explain), so I parked for another day, kicked myself repeatedly and promised to never, ever ever make such a stupid newbie mistake again.

A few days later, I was driving west with a truckload of beer. I pulled over to grab a chimichanga in Boardman, OR. While I was eating my lunch, I received a Qualcomm message from my Driver Manager. “Stay put!” the message said, “You are going to swap loads with another driver”. A very sheepish-looking driver eventually caught up with me and we swapped trailers. He was out of time, having made the exact same mistake as I had. I had plenty of available driving time, he did not.

If we learn from our mistakes, I am getting a fantastic education.

The best, late plans.

Driving the truck is the easiest part of the job. All you have to do is steer it kinda straight, keep your left door shut and try not to hit anything. Any idiot can do it, and plenty do. (They mostly drive for Swift)

Sure: there are the astonishingly long hours; endless unhealthy foods to eat and very few opportunities to pee in a clean, well-lighted place, but comparatively, driving the truck is the easy part when compared with everything else.

The hardest part of this job is planning the trip and then executing the plan intelligently so that the load isn’t late. Right at the entrance to our company headquarters, there is a big, red sign that warns the drivers: “No late loads” which I take to really mean: “Be on time, you knuckleheads!”.

That “on time” part is the hardest part for me. I am focusing on the “on time” part a lot these days, and I’m doing so not because I am especially good at it. If I were any good at it, I would be writing about something else, like maybe where to find the best roadside chimichanga.

There are people in my company with the job title of “Planner” who, with the help of fancy software, determine exactly which driver will be available when, which of them will be close enough to a shipper to be helpful and which drivers have enough available DOT time to get a load from point “A” to point “B” within a specific time constraint.

Generally, the Planners know a lot more about the feasibility than some portly, newbie driver (no specific person in mind). There isn’t a lot of “down time” and there is very little room for error. The Planners are tasked with keeping the trucks moving. (A truck is not making money for the company unless it is constantly moving. Think: Southwest Airlines; same idea).

Once they have someone in mind, they send out a message on the Qualcomm unit “asking” the driver if they want the load. It is not really a question; it’s more of a polite formality. A driver cannot turn down a load unless they have a really good reason. The only possible good reason to turn down a load would be “I really don’t want to work here anymore”.

Every day or so, the Planners send a load my way via the Qualcomm unit. Despite misgivings, I “accept” the load, and then I start the “trip planning” portion of the show. Simply put, the Shipper wants their load picked up at a certain time and the Consignee wants it to be delivered at a certain time as well. Got it! Life is good so far.

There is a simple method to figure out how long it takes to get someplace. Just know the distance and that one averages 50 mph and you're good to go. And since I like to drive at about 57 mph, this should be fine; it should account for any pee stops and the occasional visits to taco trucks that are selling chimichangas along the way. Except that it doesn’t.

The shipper is not just waiting around, hoping that you will brighten up their day with your presence; they have other trucks forming a line right in front of you on the entrance road leading up to a guard shack. And the guards (who, by the way, are unfailingly polite, courteous and efficient) have to get your paperwork in order, check your ID against their records, double-check your seals (if loaded) or inspect your trailer (if empty) and all of that takes time. Plus, they often have to explain to the portly, newbie driver just where to drop his empty trailer and where he might also find his pre-loaded trailer.

The clueless newbie (me) then drives forward into their yard (10 mph; four-way flashers on), finds the correct spot to drop the empty, but he first needs to slide the tandems on the trailer backwards (this is necessary so that loaded, heavy forklifts can safely drive inside the trailer).

In order to slide the tandems, first I have to unlock their locking pins. About half the time, the two-inch-thick tandem locking pins are rusty (and are effectively frozen in place) and pulling the handle gets you nowhere, so I have to use a pair of Vice Grips in an attempt to hold the release handle in place while I run back to the tractor, climb back up inside, release the brakes and “rock’ the trailer back and forth with the tractor until the pins agree to play along and finally release. Certain words (words that were only recently learned at truck school) are muttered during this process.

Waiting at the dock for a green light

Eventually, I find and get hooked up to a different, (this time: fully-loaded) trailer, drive back to the entrance where the friendly security guards double-check the seal numbers on the trailer doors before bidding me adieu. Then, I get to drive out of the terminal and then back out onto the Interstate.

The Interstate that is currently under construction. I’m not talking about any Interstate in particular; ALL Interstates are perpetually under construction. I think that they must see me coming and hurriedly set out orange cones. By law, I must slow down. I lose time.

I set the cruise control, turn up the tunes, drive merrily along at 57 mph and flick boogers down onto the passing cars. That works great until there is a hill in front of me. Little hills I can deal with; the mighty Cummins engine pulls them with no worries, but big hills (with names like “The Grapevine” or “The Siskiyous”) require me to gear down and gear down and gear down until I find myself chugging along up a 6% grade at 25 mph with my four-way flashers going blinkity-blink. I lose more time. Snot-encrusted cars pass me in the left lane and yell something as they speed by. 

Sometime between three hours after my day begins yet before eight hours have transpired, I must take a 30 minute break. Normally, this is never a problem because even I need to eat, drink and tinkle now and then, but as of July 1^st, 2013, the midday, 30 minute break is now a federally mandated requirement.

Generally, my delivery destinations are about a day and one half away and most of the time, my delivery appointment is scheduled for the early morning. I can only legally drive for 11 hours a day out of the 14 hour workday, no matter how fast I am going or what steep hills are in between the Shipper and the Consignee. After my 11 hours of driving time, I need to stop somewhere. To be in compliance with DOT regulations, I need to be shut down for an uninterrupted 10 hours, but I also kinda need to be close enough to my destination in order to get there the next day on time, allowing, perhaps, for mountain passes, road construction, city commute traffic and traffic accidents that block entire freeways.

In addition, my awesome Driver Manager would prefer that I get to the destination somewhat early (so that we don’t lose the account), perhaps a couple of hours early?So I need to drive as many miles as I can (so as to be within spitting distance of the Consignee) while still allotting 10 hours of sleep time. This is becoming a math-word problem. Math is hard.

But where shall I lay my head down to sleep? If I make miles and drive late into the night, all the best truck stops (ie: closest to the Consignee) will be long filled up, yet it doesn’t make sense to stop early in the day when there might still be available parking spots (truck stops are usually quite full for the night by 4:00 pm) and I won’t be close enough to my destination anyway. And if I drive late into the night, there might not be enough available time left over after taking my 10 hour break to get to my appointment on time.

Let’s review: I still have to get to my destination on time. I cannot speed in the truck. My truck is governed to 62 mph. I have to stop somewhere for 10 hours. I have to do a 15 minute pre-trip inspection every morning. I have to contend with rush hour traffic, traffic accidents, steep hills and endless road construction. I may need to stop now and then to eat something that’s clearly unhealthy. And when I get to my appointment, I still have to fuss around with balky tandems before breaking the seal, opening the trailer doors and backing up in a straight line until I bump up against their loading dock. My head is starting to hurt and I really need to empty my bladder. My perfect trip planning has gone pear-shaped.

The consignee isn’t just waiting only for my delivery; they are expecting other trucks that day too. They have only so many available loading docks, forklifts and receiving staff and they may not be able to accommodate my late ass. If I miss my scheduled appointment, my entire load might actually be refused (which has already happened to me twice).

When that happens, it’s not just embarrassing for me; it also impacts and annoys countless people. My awesome Driver Manager (who is monitoring, in real time, by satellite, every single misstep that I make each and every day) has to notify our Customer Service department who has to call up and ask the customer to please ask their receiving department to re-schedule the delivery (“that our knucklehead driver missed”) for another day. When that happens, I get very sad.

And all of this occurred because I was taking way too long to eat a chimichanga at the taco truck in Buttonwillow.