Logging Pretrip

Line 4 , on duty . Some carriers may want you to note it as a pre-trip . That is a company policy . The FMCSA only requires time and location of duty status changes . See pages 18-21
http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/truck/driver/hos/fmcsa-guide-to-hos.PDF

 

I always do 30 min

 

How long do you spend doing it?

Depends on carrier how long you spend on the pre trip

Now remember with all this 2010 stuff comming out you really need to do a complete pre trip or post trip to make sure your truck is ready/safe to drive. You alone are responsiable for the trucks safety.

I run team now, but when I was solo I wanted to do a complete post trip before I went to sleeper making sure I had time to get any problems fixed overnight.
Then in the morning I would flag a pre trip.

 

You are required to do an inspection every day. It can be done pre-trip, post-trip or in-between. I do mine pre-trip unless I will be fueling latter in the day and then I will do it then.

 

You are required to do a pretrip before operating a vehicle . Part of the pretrip is reviewing the DVIR that was filled on as part of the previous post trips . Written DVIR's are required at the end of every trip . Nothing is required to be written as part of the pretrip unless there is no DVIR to check . Then a new DVIR must be filled out during the pretrip .

http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/Spanish/Part396_index.htm

Canadian regulation requires written inspection within 24 hours but it can be post trip or pretrip .

 

We give up how long?

 

We run electronic logs and I show minimun of 10 minutes on duty for both pre and post trip

 

my instructor says that the minimum is 15 minutes... because the paper log book is broken down in 15 minute increments.
A good pre-trip should take a person at LEAST 15 minutes to perform.

A question I have for the veteran drivers, what things were you instructed to do, but skip? Do you do all the brake checks? do you pump the air pressure down so the spring brakes pop on? Do you test the spring brakes, and trailer brakes and service brakes EVERY day when you start out?

 

I have rarely seen this done. Most of the time I got a warning from the companies that this caused undo wear on the airbags.

You will know if something is up when you start up your truck and the alarm goes off for low air. Or if it suddenly goes down. A pin hole in the trailer red line was all it took for me to loose air pressure in less than 2 minutes.

As to the log, 15 mins you have to be flying around the truck to get all the inspections done. 15 is about what I get for mid day pretrips, yet to do a propper one 30-45 minutes. No point to rushing safety.