How log to log pre/post trip?

Sorry, but you're not right on this. See my regulation quote above. You wrote, while I was writing my dissertation. It IS required that you do a pretrip.

 

Whatever various opinions are presented here, I'd wager all of us do a better PTI than most, given what we all observe on a daily basis.

 

One part of pre-trips that I think needs to be considered, slip seating vs dedicated ride. If you drive the same truck day in day out (as most of us do), you should be doing a "pre-trip" all the time. 90% of the time I'm pre-hooked to something, when I come in in the morning, I'm looking for drips/puddle or anything odd with the way the truck sits, I usually check my fluids on Monday morning, and may not pop the hood again the rest of the week, or sometimes might not check under the hood again that week till middle of the day when I'm at a customer. When I fire it up it, I'm listening for sounds that aren't normal, if I do, then I open the hood and look around. Not uncommon for me in the middle of the day to hear or notice something off and point it out to the boss, he'll usually look at it and shake his head and walk away.

Since it's not uncommon for me to haul 4 or 5 different trailers a day, every time I thump chassis tires, I thump my drives as well, I usually gauge my steers weekly. When I thump tires, I can sometimes tell if something sounds off enough that I'll grab the gauge and check, but any chassis that I know is staying local, a good thumping and a check to make sure all the tread is present and no visible belt flat spots is all it gets. Any chassis that is leaving the metro area, all 8 tires will get gauged and inspected, and I'll go over them thoroughly and might even demand a minor flat spotted tire is replaced at the rail.

I usually pull test a couple times before I start rolling, and if I'm hooked to the same trailer all day, I'll pull test it several times a too.

Typically, my pre-trip is 10 minutes every morning, closer to 20 in the winter, but a lot of that is also letting the truck warm up and starting my paperwork.

 

to each their own. i have been inspected many many many times and never once had a problem

 

i do a full pre trip everyday as well as a post trip. probably close to a 30 mins each, but im not logging anything over 15 minutes because it a complete waste of time on elogs

 

Exactly my point. That's why it has become the standard time most drivers use.

 

Young driver I know locally use to park on the same lot that I did. He would show 15 min on his elog, but never one time walk around the truck.

This same driver / owner wanted to do all his own wrenching too.

One day he comes in with the lug nuts loose on the rear trailer axle drivers side, and 2 studs broke off, 1 actually laying in the wheel still.

He couldn’t figure out what had happened since 2 days before he had just installed a new seal, along with new shoes on that side.

As I listened to him talk it was apparent to me what had happened.

He had installed the new brake shoes, set the drum in place, adjusted the brakes, then pulled the knob on the dash before installing the wheels. Y’all getting a mental picture of this…?

As far as showing a pre trip & post trip, I’ve always showed 30 minute pre trip, and never shown a post trip on my logs in 30+ years of driving. Not one time have I had an issue on the scales or side of the road when an officer looked my logbook over. Not saying it won’t happen, but since 1987 it hadn’t yet…..

 

Agreed. I understand some drivers don't do the pretrip and just log it for the 15, and your example is an interesting example of the inherent danger on doing that. I agree with you, that I do a 30 min and my post is usually good also, and my enroute one's are more cursory focusing on the lights, tire visual and load securement checks...but I still log that pretrip as 15 minutes.