9/7/09

The 14 hour rule is mainly a tool of the Illuminati to destroy the will of truck drivers to fight the New World Order... or something. Occasionally though, it may come in handy. I'm hoping that tonight is one of those occasions.

After hanging around Beaverdam and listening to the rain drops all day, I headed back out on US-30 across Ohio. I left a little early and allowed time for a couple of breaks along the arduous 150 mile route. Once I arrived at my consignee, I found a locked gate and a sign saying that they opened at 1am. Okay then, I sort of expected that. Time to kick back and peruse the interwebs for a while.

Some time after 11pm, the gate opened and a fella directed me to a dock. Blindside backing around the corner of a building in the dark isn't very high on my list of things to do after such a lazy weekend, but I got 'er in there without any major issues. Two guys with alternating forklifts had me empty in short order and I was on my way. I headed to the local truck stop, caught up my log book, and took stock of the situation.

It occurred to me before I logged on to check my board status that I couldn't say for sure whether or not my home time request had been processed last weekend. When we log on to the web portal and check our board status, there is a letter 'X' that indicates requested home time if we're on the ready board. I had gone from one pre-planned load to the next and never really been on the board since sending my request though. There was a possibility that this run to Ohio simply came as a coincidence and not as an effort to move me toward home.

If you dig into the minutae of our company guidelines, we're not really supposed to request home time when we're pre-planned for another load. I was pre-planned for one to Salt Lake City by the time I arrived in Colorado (where I sent in the request). But we're also not allowed to request home time before we get within 25 miles of our delivery point. I really don't see any way around it from the driver's perspective. How do I know when a pre-plan is or isn't coming? If I can't send the request when I'm pre-planned and I also can't send it until I'm at (or near) my consignee, then there conceivably could be a period of several days during which I was SOL. I've sent them while I was pre-planned in the past and never had any issues though. This time, no issues either. I'm #1 on the board and my 'X' is there. Beauty.

So we get to the 14 hour rule. I'm not much in the mood to drive through the night and get home before dawn tomorrow. As long as it takes the fine folks in Joplin at least another hour or so to move me, I won't be able to make it home within today's hours and they'll have to factor in a 10 hour break along the way. Since my license doesn't expire until Thursday, I wouldn't even be terribly heartbroken about grabbing one more run along the way. Seven days is what it is though, and I sent my request on the evening of the 31st. Technically speaking, I think they're running out of time. Guess I'll try to sleep for a bit and we'll see how it all plays out.