Well, we know what the rules are. For a cargo van it's 900 miles or a 16 hour clock, whichever comes first. The clock starts when you satellite position changes, and doesn't reset until you've been sitting still for 5 hours. Simple.
They came up with 900 miles in 16 hours, because Safety, of all people, knows that a cargo van can drive 900 miles in 16 hours. But dispatch doesn't think so, they're hangin' tough on 47 MPH, "because that's what we have to go by". Well, no they don't. They can go by intelligence and common sense, too. But they don't, because it's either boiled from their brain during their orientation, or they are required to leave it in the car when they show up for work.
The problems arise when these simpletons begin applying the rule with no intelligence or common sense whatsoever. In the above example, the clock started when Nadal rolled to the pickup. I don't know, but let's say it took him 3 hours to get to the pickup, and then half an hour to get loaded. That leaves 12.5 hours to run the 650 mile run. That's absolutely doable in all but the weirdest circumstances, since 650 miles is 10-11 hours in a cargo van, generally speaking.
But the simpletons in dispatch are Hell bent on that 47 MPH thing. They see 650 miles at 47 MPH and go with 13.8 (14) hours to make the delivery, and thus ergo therefore you don't have enough time to make the delivery before your 16 hour clock runs out. Even though the reality is you're gonna show up a couple of hours early.
Someone made the call to pull the trigger on that swap far too early in the load, never giving Nadal a chance to make up any time versus the 47 MPH routing. The reason they did that is because the have to look at crossdock availability, and second-leg driver availability, and then match them up. Between the pickup and the delivery, the only place that had a crossdock and a driver to swap it out to was 160 miles after the pickup.
For example, you pick up a load in Elmira, NY delivering to Knoxville, TN, 715 miles. 1700 pickup, 0830 delivery the next morning, 15.5 hours to get it there. They're already looking at probably swapping it out, since all loads over 500 miles are flagged for a swap. But you had to deadhead 100 miles, 2 hours, to get to the pickup. Your 16 hour clock started at 1430, when you rolled to the pickup, so it runs out at 0630 the next morning, 2 full hours before the delivery time. You bet they're looking to swap it, because you don't have time for a 5 hour break.
On these swaps they try, if possible, to break it up half way, so that both drivers get roughly the same amount of miles. If one driver takes it 550 miles, it'll be tough to get someone else to take a 165 mile run, for a few reasons.
But, once you get past Mechanicsburg, PA there's no place to swap it out even remotely half way unless there's a driver sitting in Roanoke, and even then it'll have to be during the day because none of the crossdocks in Roanoke are open overnight. So you pick it up in Elmira and it gets swapped out 180 miles later in Mechanicsburg. The other guy takes it the remaining 535 miles, and you just deadheaded 100 miles for 180 loaded.
But the reality is, if the simpletons hadn't been so locked in to a hard and fast rule that must be applied rigidly, using the most conservatively cautious scenarios, you'd have showed up at the delivery in Knoxville 11 to 11.5 hours after the pickup, 13 hours after the start of your 16 hour clock, and 2 to 2.5 hours early. No swap or break necessary.
They don't want to take the chance of letting you go past Mechanicsburg and then something go wrong, and then have no place and no driver to swap it out to and still deliver the load on time. I get that. I can absolutely understand that. But it gets to the point of erring on the side of ridiculous, being so afraid a load might be late, that we might as well get out of the business because even after the swap the load can be late. About twice a year I get a load swapped out from me and about an hour or so later I get a call to go and recover that same load because the second leg van broke down, or once, ran out of gas. If I can swap it out, wait an hour, drive another hour, then take it the rest of the way, I could have taken it the whole way without the dog and pony show.
Panther only has A, B and C units. Knock off that purple and teal speak.