Log Off Duty Driving Home Empty

how do you propose to make a delivery. when the gooberment wants you to take a lunch??? OR, shut down for the night. and your OH SO CLOSE. for your appointment. doesn't look good for your company when the clock is against the driver.

you all talk about planning. but you can't plan for out of routes, construction, closed roads, accidents. and destinations that are actually 70 miles away from where you were told you were going. PLUS, 30 miles of ROUGH dirt roads. on top of that lengthy OOR.

 

Theres the whole problem, you need to decide if you are going to work within the limits of law or not. It is up to you to decide how you proceed. It is your license, so go with your choice.

 

off duty, means just that. off duty. my motorhome is empty. has no dispatch. and it's the weekend.

IT'S OFF DUTY. which means MY TIME. all i need now is a place to drop the trailer.

 

Well, I have 489 drivers that can do it day in and day out, and 11 drivers that can't. My suggestion is to fire the 11 drivers that can't, but the powers that be don't want to go that route.

 

It's legal as long as you're not going in the direction of a load. I off duty drove 13 hours home when my son was born. My reload had to be the opposite direction of where I came from. I put on 1500 mile Bob tail by the time I got back to where I was. 150 gallons of fuel was cheaper than a plane ticket home.

 

What if i told you. It's NOT legal. No matter what direction you're traveling.

Unless your going to a motel, dinner, shopping, whatever. It has to be logged. And from the sounds of things. We won't even get THAT luxury before too much longer.

 

Than you are a ticket writing cop. I know you are not. It comes down to am I a CMV, yes or no. It is just that simple. I will not get into company drivers, I have NEVER driven for someone else, so I cannot say. I just know for an Owner Operator going back to base, unladen no matter the direction, off duty, is off duty.

 

A sleeper berth is not a RV, unless it has a chemical toilet for humans at a minimum. Even then you cannot claim it as such.

Bobtail home usually had a card given by the company stating that the tractor is your personal vehicle when off duty. Ergo off duty. If Im going home to little rock, I'll just burn the hours driving. I can get it back in a few days time.

 

Go ahead make the run toLittle Rock make sure you stop at the scale house because you're still a commercial vehicle. And don't cry when they give you a violation and put you out of service for 10 hours.

This is a case of CYA, or get burned

 

I bobtailed off duty driving 3 different times from Texas to California and even one of those times got a Level 1 inspecting at Chowchilla, no violations.