My company wants me to request two inspections at weigh stations

Reasonable, that's like asking how long is a piece of string.

To most OTR drivers knocking 3500+ miles every week. 150 miles is a short hop. To a soccer mom that does 5k per year, 150 miles is an arduous journey.

We are subject to someone else's definition of reasonable without having the slightest clue about their frame of reference.

 

I unloaded in Idaho yesterday, picked up another small load and delivered it in Reno, crossed the state line into CA and PC'd the last 150 miles home. I was no longer on company time.Total miles yesterday, 819. You can say I'm crazy all you want, but I've done it many times and had similar logs inspected and it was never a problem. I realize in some states it would be a problem, but that's just the nature of this business.

 

Oh if it was that simple. The FMCSA is in a huge pincer when it comes to ANYTHING to do with the HOS rules in 395. Take a look at this google search result just based on this new 30-minute rule change! The FMCSA has ZERO wiggle room. I am not 100% sure on this, but last I heard the FMCSA is still working under a Federal Court Consent decree from a number of years ago on that 34 hour reset. I have posted several times providing links to the history of the PC guidance and why it's written that way. As to the states they are bound by the rules found in part 350 to follow the FMCSA rules and said rules in how they are interpreted. Actually the states are not that serious a problem. The primary problem in my opinion is the officer and the driver at roadside. It is this officer that determines what reasonable means.

That last part I am in full agreement with. A driver gets nailed in Ohio, but as @SteveScott has posted he gets by with doing the same thing somewhere else. And in this current legal environment, the FMCSA is NOT going to write any specific PC rules. I said clearly I WOULD NOT PC even 40 miles. It just is not worth the possible OOS and heavy HOS fine that could be part of that said OOS.

 

Pretty much anything that relates to the HOS rules as it relates to logging is a bottomless pit that just turns into a round-robin discussion with no end! At some point enough is enough! Most drivers at some point have been in driver meetings where this happens. I have seen several safety critters cross their eyes when this starts. So, for this reason, I am not going to amplify or try to better explain my positions on PC in this thread, other than this final bit.

The FMCSA is NOT going to get into specifics on PC, there will NEVER be language that permits or prohibits PC by a rule.They will NEVER use any language other than reasonable etc. I have spoken to FMCSA field office agents about this topic. What the FMCSA is NEVER going to do is be in a position where some driver who has been driving for 20 or so hours either causes or is involved in a serious crash. Then have that driver say well the FMCSA said I could PC. Once the FMCSA issued written rules that state what limits were etc, then drivers could use this as a defense in court. Then the lawsuits start. The last act in that situation would be ALL the PC guidance in 395 will be removed and the entire practice prohibited by either a Judges order or a settlement. There is a part of me that would love to see the FMCSA do precisely that! Prohibit the practice and start fixing the problem by using their authority to regulate interstate commerce and come down on these shippers etc that waste drivers time. Make them BY RULE responsible for their actions. To my way of thinking this is a MUCH better solution. Then ONLY allow PC when a truck is bobtail and within a radius of a company terminal OR a drivers home.

 

The answer may be no , but there's no way in h3ll I'm shutting down for 10 hours when I'm only 20 minutes away from home.

 

My thoughts are much like yours. In the old days of paper logs, I'm going to show staying on line 3 until I get to my home and then draw up to line 1 and stop my day. In today's new E-logs and GPS for some drivers might be a problem depending on how their carrier operates. I am not well versed on the elogs because I never used them. I want to remember that my last carrier allowed for a 15-minute error on things like syncing fuel stops to logs. So 20 minutes would be VERY close to this error and the carrier might ignore it. With the current PC guidance, you can go home anyway. The real debate is what constitutes reasonable as to distance traveled PC!

 

Some people want to sit in a truck stop for 10 hours when they’re close to their house, some don’t. If I’m not doing work for the company and I could do the same task in a car then I will use PC to accomplish what I need to, be it going to get food or bobtailing 300 miles to a truck show. As I said in another thread, if you have 6 days worth of logs to show them with no PC and 1 day with it then they will probably look and see what you were doing. If you use it a lot, and you have a good attitude and don’t give the officer any flak, they likely won’t dig through and read the remarks for every time you’ve used it over the last week prior to inspection.

 

I just got home. Stayed about 70 miles away last night cause I was out of time.

 

There may be more to it with that Ohio driver. You mentioned that he wouldn't definitively state his destination so its very possible they suspected he was moving towards a load and was trying to hide it.

There was no way they were letting him go if that was the case.

 

There is, and I left that part out. In a nutshell, his home and terminal both were to the east and he just came up on a (Richard) Ohio DOT officer. He was empty and according to my information, the DOT Officer claimed he used words that implied he was actually going to the terminal first.

(while writing this reply I stopped for a minute to make a call to the person that is my source)

They said the officer asked him where he was going to park his rig? He said at home. The officer looked at his CDL and took note he lived in an appt in Springfield and asked the driver where he was going to park, because he grew up in Springfield and knows of no area to park a CVM there. Then the driver according to this person said after he dropped the trailer off at the terminal he was going home. This may not be 100% accurate. If it happened this way the driver as much as admitted he was violating the HOS rules.

 

Well then the officers were correct. Going to the terminal on PC is not a valid use of PC. He could of PC'd from the terminal to his house, but not from wherever to the terminal.
FMCSA sees going to a terminal as finishing the trip, and has done this since I started driving 10 years ago at least.....