Maverick Logs

If you are empty , go off duty , and drive to the nearest safe place you are not in violation of HOS. Company policy maybe but not HOS. Being loaded running out of hours frequently is just poor planning on somebody's part.

 

Have to say I disagree on both counts.

The only way to run legally after you're out of hours is to log Line 5, which is Off Duty driving. Our Qualcomms do not offer that option, which means if we drive somewhere, it defaults to "Driving" and that's a violation. Most of the time, if an officer sees that and you explain what happened, it probably won't be a big deal, but it's a violation no matter which way you look at it. You CAN get a ticket for it.

And second, running out of hours is not always poor planning. Now, running out of hours while driving and not planning ahead is definitely poor planning, but I cannot plan for what a customer decides to do, such as keep me docked for 6 hours and run out my 14, then demand I leave their property immediately. WalMart is bad about that, and one of our drivers even once tried to refuse to leave on the grounds that they were forcing him to violate the law. They threatened to ban ALL Maverick trucks from all of their properties, so they ended up winning and the driver had to violate HOS to get to the nearest truck stop which was about 15 miles away.