How long car shipping takes

How long it takes to ship a car is two waits added together. First you wait for a carrier to pick up, starting at your first available date. Then the car is on the road for however many days that truck actually needs. RideShipper does not yet have a counted sample of observed deliveries, so this page does not state an average. The table is a planning model. It is a floor under federal driving limits, not a promise.

Get the miles for your own route from the distance tool. Put those miles into the transit time tool when you want the same rules applied to a date. Both are calculators. Neither assigns a truck.

The wait before anyone picks up#

The first available date is the first day the car may leave. It is not a pickup appointment. A company may still be searching for a carrier that will accept the pay and the route. That search can take days after the date you named. The meaning of the date is in what a first available date means.

Ask the company to split any time estimate into "days until a truck is assigned" and "days after pickup." If they will not split it, you cannot tell a slow search from a long drive.

The driving limits the model uses#

49 CFR 395.3 limits a property-carrying driver, unless an exception in 49 CFR 395.1 applies:

• The driver must take 10 consecutive hours off duty before driving.
• The driver may drive up to 11 hours.
• Those 11 hours must fall inside a window of 14 consecutive hours after the driver comes on duty.
• Except for drivers who qualify for a short-haul exception in 49 CFR 395.1(e), driving is not allowed if more than 8 hours of driving pass without a consecutive 30-minute interruption. Off-duty time, sleeper-berth time, on-duty time that is not driving, or a combination of those, can satisfy that break.
• If the carrier does not operate every day of the week, the driver may not drive after 60 hours on duty in 7 consecutive days. If the carrier operates every day, the driver may not drive after 70 hours on duty in 8 consecutive days.
• A period of 34 or more consecutive hours off duty can end that 7-day or 8-day count.

Loading cars counts as on-duty time. The 14-hour limit is a clock that starts when the driver comes on duty. It is not the same thing as 14 hours on duty. The 60-hour and 70-hour limits count on-duty time, and a period of 34 or more consecutive hours off duty can end the 7-day or 8-day count. A long trip's calendar span is longer than a pure driving-hour division. The rule is a ceiling on the driver. It is not a speed your carrier owes you.

A floor, under an assumption you can see#

Assumption, stated once: 50 miles of forward progress per driving hour. This is not a measured speed for car carriers. It is a round number so the arithmetic is visible. Change it if you want a more conservative plan. At 40 miles of progress per driving hour, every row takes longer.

At the stated assumption, 11 hours of driving cover 550 miles. That is one maximum driving day, and only if the driver spent every legal driving hour moving toward your destination. A shared trailer does not do that. It detours for other pickups and deliveries.

Read the last column as the instruction. The middle columns are the floor if a driver did nothing but drive your route at the assumed pace, up to the 11-hour cap. Real shared-trailer trips take longer. When RideShipper has enough reported deliveries on a route, the published figure should switch to that counted sample and say how many shipments it includes. Until then, do not treat a forum comment or a broker's "typical" as this site's average.

What makes a trip longer than the floor#

• The truck loads and unloads other vehicles. Your car waits while those stops happen.
• The pickup or delivery is rural, or the truck cannot use the street, so the meeting point adds a detour. See what door-to-door means.
• The car does not run. A winch load is arranged differently and can limit which truck accepts the job.
• Weather, road closures, and the 34-hour restart. None of these are breaches by themselves. The contract's delivery window is the standard you can enforce, if it states one.
• An enclosed or single-car truck may be faster or slower. There is no federal rule that smaller means quicker. The contract has to say what you paid for.

A missed window is a customer-service problem with the company you booked. It is not fixed by this table. Call that company and ask for a revised window in writing.

A worked example that is only arithmetic#

Take a route the distance tool measures at 1,000 miles. At 50 miles of progress per driving hour, that is 20 driving hours. Twenty hours is one full 11-hour driving day plus 9 more hours, so the floor is two driving days. It is not "two days from the phone call." Add the pickup window. If the contract gives the carrier five days to arrive after your first available date, a careful plan is those five days plus the two driving days, and then extra days because the trailer is shared and the driver must stop for the 10-hour off-duty period.

If you change the assumption to 40 miles of progress per driving hour, 1,000 miles is 25 driving hours, which is three driving days at the 11-hour cap (11 + 11 + 3). Use the slower assumption if the route is mountain, urban, or winter. Do not use either assumption as the carrier's promise. When dispatch names a window, that window replaces the worksheet.

What to write down when someone quotes "days"#

Ask for four numbers, separately:

• The first available date you gave them.
• The last day of the pickup window.
• The estimated days after pickup.
• The date you must have the car, for a flight, a job, or a registration appointment.

If their estimated delivery is after your must-have date, the quote does not fit, even if the driving floor looks short. A cheaper truck that cannot meet the last day of your real deadline is the wrong offer. RideShipper's range does not include a guaranteed day. The transit time tool shows a planning figure from the same driving rules. It does not book a carrier.

Islands and Alaska are not this table#

Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico are not a longer version of a highway row. Those trips leave this driving model. RideShipper's truck estimate does not price or time them.

Use these pages instead of adding miles:

• How long a Hawaii shipment takes
• How shipping a car to or from Alaska works
• How shipping a car to or from Puerto Rico works
• Lead time for Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico

Do not invent a sailing date from the highway table. Ocean bookings can close before a truck lane does. The vessel operator's current schedule is the one that counts.

How to plan a date you actually have#

1. Look up driving miles in the distance tool.
2. Find the matching row above and treat it as a minimum for driving, then add days because the truck is shared.
3. Add the pickup window from your contract, starting at the first available date.
4. Put flights, closings, and the movers' truck on the last day of that combined span, not the first.
5. When a carrier is assigned, ask that carrier's dispatch what window they will actually run. A named carrier's window replaces this model for your shipment. Check the carrier's MC or USDOT number on Company Snapshot when you get it. The miles themselves still come from the distance tool.

The glossary entry for transit time uses the same split: days after pickup, planned as a range, not days after the quote.