Question regarding COVID-19 exemption letters

Can you provide more details? I've never heard of exemption letters....

 

Dont do anything that is questionable or you think illegal. The company will throw you under the bus in a heartbeat if you get busted. You are captain of your ship and make all the calls as to whether you run or not.

 

Only the shipper can call it exempt as only the shipper knows if it meets the criteria.
Here are a couple snippets from the declaration:

Expansion and Extension of the Modified Emergency Declaration No. 2020-002 Under 49 CFR § 390.25 (February 17, 2021) | FMCSA

The extension of the expanded modified Emergency Declaration No. 2020-002 provides regulatory relief for commercial motor vehicle operations providing direct assistance in support of emergency relief efforts related to COVID-19 and is limited to transportation of
(5) food, paper products and other groceries for emergency restocking of distribution centers or stores. Direct assistance does not include routine commercial deliveries,

Basically only the shipper knows if the load is for the emergency restocking. I have a hard time believing that in May 2021 any food product is for emergency relief. About all I could see qualifying is vaccine related and other medical shipments.

 

My understanding is that the letter comes from the shipper, attached to your BOL. My company told us over the winter that anything declared as exempt must be handled by the shipper, then verified by the trucking company.

 

I'd look at the letter, too. Even though your company sent it to you. It could be a letter from the shipper. So take a closer look. If its not from XYZ shipper. Then I'd CYA. If it is from them. Then it might be legit.

 

Pretty sure you’re not supposed to PC the whole way, even if exempt. That’s falsifying your logs.

 

That’s a trip I would have turned down.

because it can’t be done legally at all.
The emergency exemption letter is basically for a couple of hours here and there. not to run two days on PC when you have a load.

If you get caught the company will act like they know nothing about it , and it’s your CDL that will take the hit.
And as mentioned running PC with cargo or driving to pickup up cargo is falsified logs.
If you are involved in an accident and the dot and lawyers get out the microscope ,
You’re looking at jail time, a emailed letter isn’t going to help at all .