Hours of service questions and answers

I'm not impressed either. Unfortunately, I think its where the industry is going.

 

the two programs i'm looking at are all human generated. not truck controlled. meaning they can be fudged also. and when dot wants to see. they can be printed out and look clean. not pissing the man off. and they look exactly the same as the log books you all are filling out by hand. if you want to change your entries. it's much easier and cleaner. i would think the companies should be happier also. nice, easy to read, print outs.

the software is no different then the actual book. it just don't require a pen. and make ugly messes when fudging.

 

Fudging log books is one way. But many companies now use qualcomm. Logs have to match the qualcomm data.

Fuel receipts are also time stamped when paid through comdata or whatever. Again, these have to match the time of transaction.

Not as easy as it used to be.

 

Yep it used to be real easy. The company I worked for had no Qualcoms and we even paid cash for fuel so there wasnt even a time stamp. All we had to do was be there on the right date.
I remember one time I made 3 trips from Ohio to New Hampshire in one week. Friday afternoon on the return trip #3 I get pulled into the Connecticut scale house and told to bring in all my paperwork. At the time I pulled in I only had about 2 hours of my 70 left. The officer goes over my log book with a fine tooth comb for about an hour and then he looks up at me and says" Driver I know there isnt one factual thing written down in here but I cant find a mistake because the only thing I have to pinpoint you with is the crossing of the Newburg Bridge 3 times and they match. After being in here an hour you got an hour left to drive for the next three days, have a good day." My response was "Good thing your innocent until proven Guilty and an hour is all I need to get out of this state."

I will definately miss the loose leaf logs.

 

Just so you know. I have a friend who pays cash for fuel to this day. He had an accident in February 2007. His attorney has advised him that the fuel receipts have numbers on them that can be checked at the main computer for the time postings for matching to the logs and the telephone records.

 

Absolutely right on.

There may not be a time stamp on the receipt you get from the fuel desk or whatever, but if there is a point-of-sale computer involved, there will be a time stamp on the sales record that is stored on disk. And that stuff can be retrieved. You may get by the scalehouse, but if the crap really flies, you're toast.

 

Plane and simple....i think people are getting confused when we use terms like extending your 14 hr day. Look at it like this...you are NEVER extending your 14 hr day in reality....when you split a 2 hr sleeper with an 8 hour break you are still taking 10 hours off.....so dont get confused I think a lot of people think they are going to legally get down the road further doing this and it just isnt true. It is so much easier to just man up and drive 11 hrs and take your break. Doing the split BS will not getn you down the road any faster and there is absolutely no reason to do it.

 

You can take advantage of line 1 and 2 periods that would otherwise just be wasted time using a split break. I only use it on loading and unloading days where it makes sense... doesn't always work that way.

 

I used to think the same way T3573 but, I have to say I find myself using it more and more these days. There have been many trips where I have legally been able to come home 2hrs earlier than not using the split the previous day.

My job even recommends that we not use it because of the confusion. However, all those extra two hours will probably add up to an extra 1000 miles over time.

I know it's been worth it for me!

 

i dunno even when you use all that confusion to extend the 14 hr clock you have less driving time left after you wake up. I dont understand how anyone can keep the schedule on the split break anyway. I guess each their own, i would just rather get up and drive 11 and be done. It is all going to change anyway in the next couple of years when they redo our hours of service