Personal Conveyance revisited

If you unload and no parking at delivery and you run out of hours at delivery, you can use personal conveyance to first safe place to park. If you have HOS and just trying to save time I don't think that would work.

Parking on the shoulder would illegal in most states and bad idea. If you run out of HOS at delivery you can use personal conveyance to first safe place to park in any direction. So their would be no reason to park on the shoulder.

Personal Conveyance is for going to get food or going to the movies when your parked at truck stop or something. You can use when you run out of hours at pickup or delivery and they don't have any overnight parking.

 

1. Guidance specifically allows for the first safe location. Not necessarily the first truck stop, and not necessarily in the direction you want to go. If you pass a rest area to get to a truck stop you might have to have a good reason for any inquiries from leo's.

2. Nothing in the guidance allows this. Once stopped you need to be legal then. Now if you are on the side of the road and an leo tells you to move, you can pc.

 

In situation one! It depends on how your hours are running. If you have enough time left I would not use PC but would go on ahead and log line 3 and find a parking place. In these situations, PC is really designed so you can find a legal place to park. Not necessarily the best place, just a legal place to park.

In situation 2! try to not do this if you humanly can. It is a VERY grey area and to be honest if you have some form of an issue can lead you to serious trouble. back in my active driving days, I used to do this after leaving a dock in the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes conditions force it, just don't make a habit of doing it.

 

No. Use of PC to move to legal, safe parking from a shipper/receiver is ok. As is being told to move by an LEO. That's the only time being out of hours matter. Of course that's also the only times it can be used when not truly personal.

It's a valid use of PC yes. If you stay at the truck stop though, an LEO might not agree it's a valid use. Of course they might so..

And be careful using the word legal in reguards to PC. The actual federal regs, which are adopted as law on the state level do bot actually make PC legal. The guidance which makes it a valid defense is a very grey area and up to LEO interpretation as to what is valid.
My advice is only use it for truly personal use like food, laundry, walmart, etc. Never count on it in trip planning.

 

I would ask your company for guidance. At mine we cant switch to PC while looking for parking; I should’ve just stopped sooner. I can use PC if forced to leave a property and not interrupt a break regardless of hos availability.

Nearby is a bit subjective; while one safe location might be technically a little closer as long as I don’t pass it on the way to the other one... it’s a bit murky to me. Most of the time it’s obvious that the closer location would be the first one nearby.

*by property I mean shipper or receiver; not parking somewhere illegally and getting told to move*

 

Generally, I agree with you. In these kinds of matters, it's always best to seek company guidance and their PC policy. In that last paragraph just understand that almost everything in life is subjective. Back in my younger days, I preferred Michelob beer, some liked others! Etc. What an officer considers a safe place is that way as well. I was going to get into a long story about why this is but decided to make a quick summary. When a driver finds themselves on private property and has been directed to leave property they can't use the HOS rules as an excuse to stay. I have seen places call for a wrecker to yank a truck out. Just leave the property. If you do not have the hours to legally operate you should be looking for a place to safely get the truck OFF the road, take care of your physiological needs as well as to ensure your safety. If you are say in or near Chicago this may mean you might have to travel a while. I have been caught near Chicago and have had to drive a good way just to park. I was asked about that day by a safety critter later and they said, yes Chicago can be a tough place. Don't overthink this situation. It is easy to do in the back and forth banter on these forums.

 

No you can not switch to PC just because you ran out of time while looking for parking.

I had a good conversation with a DOT officer in NE a few months ago about PC. She explained to me that if it is determined that you used PC in a manner not specifically spelled out in the guidance, that would constitute "Falsification of Logs"... That is a very, very bad violation to be nailed with. Such a violation at many companies is immediate termination.

This DOT officer also said that if for some reason you find yourself out of hours and still looking for parking it would be MUCH better to just keep driving in violation (on the "Drive Line", line 3) of the 11 or 14 hr rule to the nearest available parking. The reason this is better is because a simple violation of these rules carries less points, and is not an automatic OOS... Where as falsification of logs carries many more points and is an automatic OOS.

Once I learned this it really made it alot easier to determine if I used PC or not.

As a side note, my company has had several drivers get nailed with Falsification of Logs in the last 2 years for using PC when they shouldnt have. One also got the same violation for disconnecting the ELD to drive home.