Landstar / EOBR

Except the majority of the folks you listed do not need to do log books anyway now, and would be exempt if intrastate hauling. Mandatory Elogs only apply to those subject to FMCSA regulations regarding interstate commerce. Operating within a state falls into what the state regulations are, which mirror the FMCSA in many ways, but not all. FMCSA has almost no jurisdiction within a state's boundry regarding intrastate hauling. That is left entirely to state discretion.

 

Except that driving, while off duty, is allowed in the FMCSA regulations. That is the purpose for unladen (bobtail) insurance. And you are maintaining a log like the insurance auditor stated.... just on line 1 while driving (off duty driving). There is no requirement that any time that truck moves it has to be on line 3. Either with Elog or with paper. The main focus is that you cannot be involved in interstate commerce a the time (i.e. have a load in your wagon), or be doing anything like deadheading to any other job related stuff. For personal conveyance, it is allowed and even gone into detail further in question 26 on the FMCSA website under their explaining various aspects of certain regulations. You can use it to leave a customer, even after 14 hrs clock has expired, to go to a safe place to park (if you are empty). You can use it to bobtail home for a break or 34 reset. Or for going to get a bite, a shower, or hotel.

See Question 26.......

http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regu...fmcsr/fmcsrruletext.aspx?reg=395.8&guidence=y

 

The area that I see issues with is on bob tailing or deadheading home like you said. If home is your "home terminal" you cant go off duty until you return to your home terminal. After that point , the way I have always understood it, then you can use the CMV to carry you back to your actual house. If you are out on the road and you go off duty you can use your CMV to go back and forth from where you are lodged and that would be considered personal use, but you cant go to a burger King 600 miles away and then pick up a load there the next morning and call that trip personal use. I would assume that if your lodging is a spot at the local TS then you could shuttle around the same town and get away with it.

Regardless, what is important is what will happen if you get a ticket or into an accident while doing this, legal or otherwise, and the hassle you would most likely get into.

It gets to be a grey area when you live and work out of the same place, or your official address is your residence. If you park your truck at the house, then you cant go off duty until you get back there. I am pretty sure you cant just end your duty time in any place you happen to be, just because you are not loaded. From what I understand, it is all about your home terminal. If you get unloaded 200 miles away from the house and then go off duty and dead head home, I think you are in trouble there.If you are 200 miles form home and you stop to get a 34 hour reset at a motel, then driving the CMV around town is legit. Deadheading or bob tailing home is only ok when you are between your home terminal and your home, not somewhere else that you just made a delivery.

We have already talked bout the slick attorneys and they would have a hay day with anyone who ever operated a CMV past the 14hr mark and then went off duty after a load then deadheaded back to the house or home terminal in an off duty status. If you got in a wreck after 14 hours on duty and 11 hours driving, your are gonna get sued and you will probably loose , legal or not, you would loose because it was negligent.

 

Wife had to call Landstar today over supposed log violations. Seems they are now checking our logs against our qualcomm and no we are not on eobr's. One big issue was driving time on a military base. We showed driving there but did not log driving time on the base. We used to run electronic logs with another company we were with and they always told us to log on base driving as off duty driving. According to Landstar this is not right and anytime spent driving must be logged as on duty driving except when u are actually off duty and then you only get 1 hour max time to drive off duty driving.

Seems to me that Landstar is going to make the eobr rules very strict. There is no reason for the company being acidine about it as long as log is legal.

Guess im going to have to install a on/off switch on my qualcomm now too!

 

One thing I like about our company is unlimited off duty driving. I was told a lot of the o/o's use their truck as their personal vehicle when on hometime.

Ethan

 

Unfortunately at this point, with all this CSA crap, keeping a clean license is WAY more important than any one load ever will be again.

 

I really don't understand why you would want to do this any more than absolutely necessary these days. Getting in a fender bender in your POV is one thing, but getting into any kind of accident in a CMV is a completely different situation. The DOT number on the side of your truck is going on the police report whether you were on duty or not and you will be kicking yourself later. I guess I just don't see any reason to need unlimited home time use of my truck. I sure wouldn't want the liability and headache of telling my drivers (if I had any anymore) that they could use their trucks for whatever they wanted at home. I guess I just don't see why you would find this attractive in any way? Maybe you can enlighten me on this ?

pete1. My point exactly. Today you have to maintain a clean driving resord and a clean CSA score for your company if you have your own authority and for yourself if you run under someone else s authority like Land Star.

 

Only thing I'm talking about Is as a lease operator, if your truck is the only vehicle you own, then you use your truck to go down to the grocery store or to go out to eat. Only thing about my situation would be I live in the sticks, not the city. So getting into an accident would be less likely. Still could happen, I'm not saying it wouldn't.

Ethan

 

I think you bring up a good point and that is each Carrier will make their own rules and you will have to follow them. This is a good example of how a Carrier can force you to do things their way, according to company policy, regardless of what the law says or allows. And there is nothing wrong with this. The CO has every right to make and enforce policies, especially those that will effect their CSA rating.

Another good example of this is the Split Sleeper Berth. Yes it is legal and it is allowed, but many many carriers just don't allow it because nobody understands how it works, and this includes the majority of DOT inspectors and enforcement officers. So because of all the issues and complications associated with the split sleeper birth rule, companies simply don't allow it under company policies. Again this is totally fine. You can bit t c h about it, but you can only deal with it or leave. Maybe with EOBRs the split birth rule might be allowed by more carriers in the future. They will probably HAVE to allow this since they will need this flexibility to get loads delivered on time.

I know of drivers who simply ARE NOT allowed to drive in an off duty status because their EOBR is set up to prevent it. It may be legal, but they just are not allowed to do it. I talked to a buddy of mine the other night and he runs for a big carrier and his EOBR automatically puts him on a DRIVING status as soon as the truck moves a certain distance or moves above a certain speed or some combination of both factors. The point is that EOBR settings have to meet the FMCSA rules, BUT they can also be adjusted to operate in a way that can control the drivers.

I have a real basic EOBR I have been testing and it has the same exact kind of driver control options what I would guess all of the bigger more complicated units do. What is good about an EOBR when you are an O/O (with your own authority) is that you are also the safety manager and you get access to all the settings and the ability to purge data from the system and make adjustments to entries and things like this, but, unfortunately you will never be able to completely purge data from the system so the attorneys will always have the ability to get ahold the data from the third party EOBR service provider.

Getting ahold of your DATA is just the kind of things that attorneys are already teaching themselves these days about the EOBR systems that are out there right now. If you run a modern truck with a modern ECM like A DDEC IV then you also have data stored somewhere that attorneys just love to go looking. NEVER leave your ECM at at an accident scene or sitting in a salvage yard if you don't have to. The ambulance chaser will track it down and download your data. Take it and LOOSE IT ASAP!! If the hacks sopeana it, then tell them you took it to put in your new truck cuz you had a custom tune on it but then decided to just throw it away. ECM data has last hard brake data and speeding and driving records on it. Just think about what is on a modern ECM and EOBR record and how an attorney will use it against you and you will be making your own rules on what you will and not not do in a CMV based on protecting YOURSELF and your reputation,CSA scores, and driving record.


Did I mention I HATE most attorneys, especially the ones on the billboards. God I miss the old days when they stayed out of the sunlight like the roaches they really are. Don't get me started...........

 

OK I gotcha.

In that case you really would not have a choice.