personal drive time?

From the guidance section of the R&R'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.

This rule is wide open to interpretation by any enforcement officer that may stop you. If you were out of hours at the time you went off-duty under this particular exemption, he can still shut you down because you ARE still driving a commercial vehicle, if he considers you too tired to continue on.

I would never recommend anyone drive a truck, even bobtail or empty for anything more than to get something to eat, if they are out of hours.

If you have an accident on the way home, and someone is killed as a result of that accident, a jury isn't going to care about the this loosely worded exemption.

It's a high risk. This particular exemption is not written clearly enough to be used as a defense when encountering an enforcement officer, and it will not stand up in court as a defense if someone is injured or killed in a crash. If anyone has any reason to feel that you are or were too tired to drive, or have exceeded any or all of those limits, it may not go in your favor. If they were to actually amend this rule to include this specific scenario, then that may change, but as it is, it's too vague and easily ignored.

My best advice, would be to insure that you have enough time left over to drive home with hours available under the three rules and log it accordingly, because this is a very iffy exemption. By logging that time on line three, no one can touch you.

 

How about driving from the terminal to your home or from your home to the terminal in your private vehicle. If you are over your 11/14/70 do these rules still apply or it is a moot point becasue you are in a non CMV?

 

It's a moot point.

 

This would be fine if you are in a personal vehicle. Because even if you drive a vehicle to pick up a truck it is only logged as line 4 time, but once they arrive they must take a 10 hour break ( I say 10 hour break thinking maybe they forgot to change the 8 to a 10). So if you are done driving a CMV then you can log that driving time in the personal vehichle on line 4 and not be in violation of the 11,14 or 70 hour. I do not see any problem legally with driving a personal vehicle, now anyone can sue and may win but DOT regs you would not be in violation of..

I agree with Turbo on the CMV driving. Now you can use that truck (bobtail) and visit family, friends, eat, laundry etc and log this time as off duty. You would not want to move the truck on your 10 hour break unless moving around from one spot to another. I would even go as far as you could within reasonable miles (what's that, I have no idea?) drive home in the CMV, but 40-90 sounds not so reasonable to me. This is my opinion in reading the rules. I do know I am e-mailing DOT about this question as I hate answering it I want direct answers to this from them if you know what I mean.


Question 24: If a driver is transported by automobile from the point of a breakdown to a terminal, and then dispatched on another run, how is the time spent in the automobile entered on the record of duty status? How is the time entered if the driver goes off-duty once he reaches the terminal?

Guidance: The time spent in the automobile would be on-duty (not driving) if dispatched on another run once he/she reaches the terminal, and off-duty if he/she is given 8 consecutive hours off-duty upon reaching the terminal.

 

heres another situation....

I typically run out of my 70hrs every week or so, and I need to take a 34hr reset, where my truck is empty, and I am not under dispatch for atleast 34hrs. I will bobtail or sometimes pull my empty trailer to the nearest walmart or supermarket. Is this a violation?

Seems the grey area makes it ok, or because I am out of hrs I cant....wait, I am not fully out of hours I usually reset with 3-4 hrs left, so I could drive and log it, but then I would not reset.....right?



K

 

Well which hours are you running against? The 11,14 or 70? If you are over your 70 hour you can log over hours and then take 34 hours off and be reset.
Prior to 10-1-05 you would have to be in compliance of 70 hours and then take a 34 hour. They did without this rule as of 10-1-05.
Keep in mind if you kill someone in a CMV what is going to happen with the Jury

 

That's the way it is.

As long as you have not exceeded the 70 hour limit, you can take the 34 hour reset.

To his other question, about taking short drives in an unladen vehicle during the 34 hour reset period, yes, you can do that. The key to doing this is that you need to log that as off-duty time, during the duration of those short trips. You don't have to stay on one line or two consecutively during a 34 hour reset, if you are taking the reset while in the truck. As long as you stay on line one and two ONLY during the entire 34 hours, your reset is satisfied. You are allowed to break it up as you desire, and the short trips for food and other personal needs are allowed.

This also goes for your ten hour breaks as well, as long as they are for a continuous period of ten hours. There is absolutely no rule that says you must stay on one line or two during those ten consecutive hour either. You also do not have to show sleeping for eight of those hours, again as long as the entire period on line one and two is at least ten hours consecutively.

When you use the split break exemption however, those breaks MUST be taken in the sleeper and logged on line two, and the truck is not allowed to be moved during those two qualifying periods of no less than two hours and eight hours, alternately.

 

The 2 hour break can be: 1) a combination of lines 1 & 2, 2) it can be line 1 for the 2 hours 3) it can be 2 hours in the sleeper.
The 2 hour break does not extend the 14 hour period.