Snackbar is chillin'....at Shaffer

No. The finished product is ready for retail sale.

 

Schneider is preaching this heavily as well. But as I never hang out in truck stops and generally spend my downtime in my truck, it’s never been a problem for me. I’ve never had an inspector even mention it.

 

The issue of logging sleeper vs. off-duty is not a new issue but enforcement of it is ramping up. Since the implementation of ELDs the common form and manner violations have pretty much gone away so the FMCSA, CVSA and enforcement partners now dive deeper into the guts of a record of duty status looking for errors, violations or false records. This has been a hot topic during routine compliance audits the last 18 months or so with many carriers getting dinged for logs on file that may have even been looked at during a roadside inspection without raising any concerns. Many of my clients that previously ignored my pleading to have their driver's log it as they do it are now paying the price. As with all FMCSA enforcement they find a hot topic and emphasis compliance on that issue for a while, at least until the next hot topic comes up.

Just because a roadside enforcement officer doesn't mention something to the driver or catch an error doesn't mean it isn't an error or the much more in-depth audit of a carrier's files will not discover it. Although off-duty and sleeper berth are both off-duty status they are not interchangeable. The proper recording of actual sleeper or off-duty time has become easier to detect with investigators being able to compare other truck created telematic data against the ELD data such as key on/off, engine on/off, and vehicle movement. Since the split provision clearly requires an uninterrupted sleeper berth provision this has become a area of interest for auditors and other investigators.

Lastly, they want the fine money and want to justify their existence by being able to claim they have discovered x number of violations. Form and manner and false logs used to be easy to find, heck some driver's handwriting was enough to qualify as a form and manner violation or simply forgetting to add up the total hours.

 

For those who are saying "hogwash, no officer is going to really do this", I present exhibit A:



I got both tossed when I went to court (well, the lawyer did). They can and will do this.

Most often when the entire thing is sleeper berth - ie pull in, 5 minute post trip and the sleeper berth for the next 12 hours. The officer asks "did you go into the truck stop at any point?" If the driver says "yes", he admits to log falsification.

 

We pick up empty ones of those in MD every now and then. Never delivered full ones though, wonder who does that. They must be too high value for them to trust us to haul them

 

That makes way too much sense.