I asked DOT today (the one's that come in an do an internal audit)
about personal time.

I asked about using the truck for personal use during your 10 hour break and he said yes you can go eat, shower etc. Now some companies (mine) want you to stay still (or move no further than around the truck stop area) so please make sure you do NOT break any company violations.

I asked about driving home bobtail and logging it off duty and how it states "within resonable miles" and he said yeap that is very miss leading and needs to be worded with exact amount of miles.
The trick here is yeah your company might say 60 miles is reasonable, but when it comes to DOT/legal issue's they have that room to say that is not reasonable. Now 20 miles is pretty reasonable, I would say "my opinion" 30 minutes of driving.


When using the truck for personal use you would log this as off duty.

Now Canada tells you specifically 75 klms, which in miles (at least the internet said) is 46.60 miles.

Ok that's one of the questions. It was verbal so I could not copy and paste the answer to ya, you just have to believe me. I believe him but I will ask the other guy also to make sure the same answers for the most part.

__________________
"Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then."

So, since there isn't any "specific" mileages or times noted, it is basically up to the discretion of the DOT man that pulls you over and the mood that he/she is in.

I bobtailed from Augusta, Georgia to Fort Worth, Texas once when I was going to take some time off, rather than sitting all weekend waiting on a load. I logged it off-duty. It was my truck and my fuel, LOL. This was over 10 years ago, but I was wondering what would have happened had I had an encounter with a trooper along the way.

Could I get the location of where it states that? Would be nice to have it book marked if I am ever pulled on my 10 hour.

Sure it's below & the link where I copied & pasted it from. You can find any of the DOT regs on that link but go to home page and then search all violations and all the regs are there. You will see a link to the middle top/right side that is in blue and will say interrpitations. That will be all the Q&A's.

Question 26: If a driver is permitted to use a CMV for personal reasons, how must the driving time be recorded?

Guidance: When a driver is relieved from work and all responsibility for performing work, time spent traveling from a driver's home to his/her terminal (normal work reporting location), or from a driver's terminal to his/her home, may be considered off-duty time. Similarly, time spent traveling short distances from a driver's en route lodgings (such as en route terminals or motels) to restaurants in the vicinity of such lodgings may be considered off-duty time. The type of conveyance used from the terminal to the driver's home, from the driver's home to the terminal, or to restaurants in the vicinity of en route lodgings would not alter the situation unless the vehicle is laden. A driver may not operate a laden CMV as a personal conveyance. The driver who uses a motor carrier's CMV for transportation home, and is subsequently called by the employing carrier and is then dispatched from home, would be on-duty from the time the driver leaves home.

[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link.

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"Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then."

..their computers hooked to the Qualcomm see the truck as moving and will log as On-duty, Driving!!! You will get 'dinged' on and have to battle at a later date if over-run hours!!

Jamadomaflotchy is right, FMCSA or not, some companies are total arses.
Just like some say you gotta do two off duty log sheets for continuous days off that cross over into the following month. ( by the way, you ain't gotta.FMCSA REG 395.8 paragraph 10 RECORDING DAYS OFF DUTY two or more consecutive 24- hour periods off duty may be recorded on one duty status record)
I also think the big "if" would fall around the definition of "laden", you could still be considered "laden" even if you dropped load at truck stop or home, as the load is not at consignee yet. I dunno, food for thought none the less.

laden means pulling a trailer with any amount of load on it, unless of course you stopped at a home depot and bought and hauled some lumber for your personal use at home and had a receipt for it and not lying and getting caught with a bill of laden for it. In the past used to be the only time you could use personal use is if you was bobtailing home with no trailer. I still believe thats how most dot interpret the law on this. If you are pulling your trailer home from unloading and going home with your own truck,technically you are on duty until you get home. If you went to the tire shop on a day off with your own truck with your truck and trailer empty and got new tires on it,maybe off duty maintenance time .Boy,what a confusing mess this trucking and regs have started and never got it right yet.Two years to retire and I will bet it won't be fixed then either.

But hey, it's perfectly fine to drive your POV after working 14 hours! lol

I had to be put in "time out" at the La Grange, GA scale several months back. I asked the DOT man if I could bobtail home (30 miles away) instead of spending 10 hours there. He said no, because I was still "under dispatch." I just left my truck there, and had my girlfriend come get me.

Sometimes, I think they make it up as they go along. No one really understands these "new" rules completely. It's idiotic how confusing it all is.

Yes, it's very murky waters regarding off-duty use of a commercial vehicle but it's not a new rule.
I have a running internet forum battle between a FMCSA agent in Illinois regarding the very same thing.

I went as far as emailing the FMCSA answer people for a ruling or opinion on this.
I got the answer as an affirmative.
You can log off-duty, personal conveyance travel under a strict sense of conditons.
Naturally my opponent continued differing in opinion & a resolution from the FMCSA law judges has never been forthcoming.
Yet, we continue to argue the point & neither of us is without points to counterpoint each other.

The rules or rather guidance presented here are not suited to the actual proposition in my estimation.

I present that anytime your company relieves you of all responsibilites of the job, you can go off-duty & once off-duty that "unladen" truck & trailer is no longer subject to the FMCSA HOS rules. Not under the FMCSA HOS rules means you can use the truck as personal conveyance as you would any other vehicle of similar size.

The one caveat is that you cannot use a "laden" vehicle as personal conveyance because you cannot go off-duty with a laden vehicle.

There's one of the dichocotomies. The rules say even with a laden vehicle, you can log of duty to "close by" hotels, diners etc while enroute. None of the FMCSA's rules dictate in any precise way what "close by" means. Per my FMCSA friend, it means a "reasonable distance". Again, there's no true guidance on what reasonable means in the rules. The interpretations are all up to the individuals involved.

Some points to remember if you try this.
You cannot have a load on.
Your company has to relieve you of performing any business for them.
You cannot take the truck or trailer to the garage or do anything with it that would normally be considered for the benefit of the company's business activities.

Once the truck & you are relieved from duty to the company, i.e., not performing business of any kind for the benefit of the company, you are no longer in the business of interstate transportation of commodities.

Once you are not in the business of transporting commodities across interstate lines, you are no longer subject to the FMCSA rules et al.

Everything I've stated is in the rules.
It's just my interpretations of the rules.
I used the strictest interpretations I could.

I'm toying with the idea of presenting this very scenario to an FMCSA ALJ (Administrative Law Judge) for a real official determination. A kind of a "mock court" thing.

I just haven't taken the time to contact any of them to see if they would be willing to donate some of their time to the proposal. They're busy people you know.

My understanding of my forum friends' disagreement is that he has seen drivers try to use that personal conveyance thing as a way to cheat hours of travel time in a big way. The courts also ruled against these drivers.
However, in reading the transcripts of the driver's cases, I saw where they were trying to cheat as well & I agreed with the courts findings..in those cases. In a few other cases, I never saw the intent to cheat yet the courts ruled against the driver. I personally would have appealed those rulings.

These HOS & other rules can be ambiguous at best & open to interpretation from everyone involved. Very poorly written.

Yes some drivers will use the personal use exception to drive and pick up their load or to do local work. You can not do that! It's only if you are using it for "personal" reason.

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"Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then."