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edbenton, the stories you tell are one of the reasons why some folks dont choose the driving life. I will share a few of my own. These rocords I made are rather small and of little value to the trucking industry but show what one person and a husband and wife team is capable of doing. My top single mileage a month stands about 16,000 give or take 500. I cannot reconcile the exact mileage because for the last 6 days I had no hours and logged that entire work week as vacation at home and picked up the log book again from the same place the last duty change was made. Literally off the books. *Shudders I had a load of Turkey meat on a Harrison Burg to Baltimore for the ship (Intermodal container) 40' reefer with a U model Mack (Offset cab) and a gross weight of 139,800 pounds at the stephen city scales (This was before the new computers, I think I hurt the platform there that day) The load took many hours because the steering would go out at about 22 mph because of the weight on the axles was too great for the hydralic pump to handle. A personal distance record is from Ohio to Garden city (Kansas), 2 days sleep waiting on a meat load and then a 2500 mile run down to I-40 across to Mohave and up to Salinas (CA) without stopping except for fuel. I needed 15 hours sleep plus one day to recover from that one but it was on time. I think I left on a saturday afternoon and was there monday afternoon. I had a single onion load from Washington across the North Dakotas (In -40 temps and a 50 mph wind) into the Boston market as a single driver in less than 4 days. Teams usually run these loads and the reciever was NOT happy as his restrauants were out of the product. I never did figure out why dispatch gave me that one. I have at times gone 4 days without eating due to payroll / paperwork problems to make ends meet. When I got out of there I was down to 130 pounds Now I am back to near 200 where I should be. I have had more than one inspection done to me where the LAW knows DARN well that I broke the HOS somewhere but cannot find it in the log book I gave him. I would rather run Donner or Emigrant in a roaring blizzard with half tanks of fuel and a failing engine than to sit for an hour and stress as the "Man" carefully examines and calculates literally every mark I ever made in that book with the pen. The stack of unfinished laundry, unshaven face, sunken eyes and a nervous tic that comes with fatique and trembles along with a million mile mug of steaming coffee is all that the officer needs to clue in that I broke the hours law somewhere. He never did find it. If you are reading this today officer... I apologize to you. I had my job and you had yours. (I used household miles rather than actual miles to make it all work to within 15 minutes of his traffic stop that morning) And yes, I took your advice not to return to PA the remainder of the day =) And you wonder why you cannot keep drivers sometimes in this kind of industry.
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