A question has been troubling me and if you would bear with me, I would like to run something by you. I know that milk haulers are exempt the first 150 air miles from the point of origin, Now this has probably been discussed before but I cannot get it in my head that using Keep Trucking ELD how this works. Most of the drivers that I know who use this method do not touch the ELD until they reach the 150 mile limit. But, sometimes the ELD shows driving, sometimes it doesn't . If the ELD shows you driving during the exempt miles, just how do you account for this time? Once the ELD kicks in, after 14 hours or 11 driving hours, the ELD is going to show that you are in violation. Maybe a notation is made that the driving hours are exempt, but "notes" aren't going to stop the ELD from showing 'VIOLATION". When does the 14 hour clock starts and end? Too many questions and not enough answers for this dumb old driver. I would appreciate if some "road lawyer" would chime in and make me "smart". .
Fmcsa recommends one of two ways. 1. Simply sign out, and when signing back in assign all those miles as exempt. Some eld's make this hard to do 2.Run under pc with a note "ag exempt per 395.1(k)"
The moment you load a gallon of milk from a silo, ranch, farm, billy bob's barn etc. You just stuck a needle on your map. 150 air miles = 172.0 miles starts at that first gallon into your trailer tank. Meaning you can roam all you want inside that zone, no HOS, No ELD no nothing, No limits to 60/70 hours that does not exist for you. You can run in that truck 168 hours a week forever and ever (Not possible but legal) provided you stay inside that zone. Time does not exist for you. no limit. THE MOMENT you go past 172 miles AFTER you loaded that first gallon or 1000 gallons or wherever HOS kicks in at that point. You are now on the clock outside of that zone edge. Basically you have either 60 hours in 7 days logging or 70 hours in 8 days logging to return to your original point after getting empty. Once inside that 172 mile and closing to your home spot toss the logbook into your filing cabinet it's closed.
If you choose not to sign in while inside of the 150 mile radius it will result in "unassigned miles" on that vehicle which will need to be annotated later. This is legal but seems like more work to me than the second method that ZVar noted. I add a drop-down "canned remark" just like all of the other pre-written remarks that you can make which says "PC - Ag exempt per 395.1(k)" - Log in and drive as off duty (using PC) and the vehicle will not have any unassigned miles. Go to normal duty beyond 150 miles and then back to "PC - Ag exempt per 395.1(k)" when you get back inside of the 150.
Your clocks are unaffected by any activity related to going to load, loading and leaving from the farm, within the 150 hr radius. 70, 14, 11 and 8 hr clocks do not increase/decrease until you leave the magic bubble. When you re-enter the magic bubble, the 70 hr clock stops, and the 34, 10 and 2 hr clocks start.
