Want to become an o/o but have a unique issue...

How about in-town mover? That's how "2 Guys and a Truck" got their start.......Or possibly sub-contracting part-time with a logging outfit?

 

he would have to log his firefighter job as "on duty"? is that because he'd potentially be driving fire apparatus (which i didn't think fell under cdl) or because it's work period?

like, if I end up say, working a 14/7, if I flip burgers, or even say drive for uber during my "off" week, do since when do I have to log any of that?

 

That niche is probably in high end, but low volume machining. A straight truck with a sidekit will usually do the job, and they'll only have a handful of shipments to make in a week. It'll just about pay for itself, but it'll give you something to do with your time off.

 

To be technical, any time you are performing work for which you are paid must be logged "On Duty Not Driving", if that work is not involving your CDL. My brother got popped for this in CO, he was doing pizza delivery on his off days to pad the income a bit.

 

Huh! I had no idea. Granted if say, I have a CDL, but no driving job, and I flip burgers for 10 hours a day and stock shelves for 8 hours a day it's not like DOT is gonna show up demanding to see my logs, but I didn't know that. I guess it makes sense, the logbook follows the driver not just necessarily the truck.

 

If you're doing the 100mi air radius thing you just have to keep hours of service, but it sounds to me that if you're following the letter of the law that might not actually help you all that much. The biggest difference, at least what I've learned, about time records vs logbooks is moreso keeping track of the cities you're in and then WHAT time of day each event occurs versus a running total.

The other thing too, is that if you're going to O/O and say, hotshot with a 1-ton pickup, it'd be really easy to run outlaw. You'd just keep a set of books that had you as off-duty whenever you're not driving and say, firefighting, if DOT were to ask about it, your answer would just be "I work part time".

I don't reckon you get pulled over very often if you're driving fire apparatus right? Plus all that's exempt from DOT still as far as I know.

Not saying that that's the right thing to do, but you know your body better than anyone else, at the end of a shift are you rested and could you drive for two days? Probably, because I doubt you spend 20 of most of those 24 hour shifts actually fighting fires, and if you did, that'd probably be the "weekend" you only drove one day or not at all.

 

As long as lawyers dont get involved, you can run 24/7. That accident that involves a lawyer will rip everything you have plus the insurance company... Your fault or noort, if they find you with a H.o.S violation.

 

Eh I think you need to pick one of them and stick with it. This isn't like taking a 2nd job flipping burgers to make some extra pocket money. This isn't the kind of business that you can just "turn off" while you're busy being a fireman for 2 days. People will be calling you daily needing things and trying to schedule you ahead of time. Piles of paperwork, endless phone calls and emails...you get the idea.