HoS Question/Passenger Carrying

Ok reason I'm asking is because before new management we used to do a lot of charter work in the early AM such as 5:30AM-9:30AM run which was consistent for the school year(September-May). New management says the reason we don't do charters is because of hours of service. What happened is management created a 5:30AM-2PM shift so they would have a dedicated person to run the 5:30AM-9:30AM work and when done the run the person's other duties are cleaning and fueling the fleet of buses. When the school year is over the job entails other charter work during the shift and fueling and cleaning the fleet of buses.

What's happening now the department wants to abolish the 5:30AM-2PM job and go back to old way of filling run with over time on a rotating basis with the 4:30PM-1AM drivers. Our argument is that if you abolish a job and fill that job with OT then management is in violation of hours of service.

Another issue is when the current 5:30AM-2PM driver is out sick or on vacation the OT is offered to the 4:30PM-1AM drivers and some drivers accept it.

Another question there are other charter work at different times. Charter work we get paid a guaranteed 4 hours OT. If the charter is only 2 hours we can punch out at 2 hours and we will still get paid 4 hours. For a 4PM-1AM driver if we did a charter at 9AM could we still work without violation our regular 4PM-1AM shift?

 

Just to reiterate....

There isn't wiggle room with rest time driving 8 hours even though the rule specifies 10 hours of driving(continuous). What's important here is the rule says you must have 8 hours rest after 10 hours of driving which I can live with because it says it what it says. However the rule doesn't specify how much rest after 8 hours of driving so it doesn't matter if you drive 8 hours, you still need the required 8 hours rest?

4:30pm-1:30am would be in violation if they performed the 5:30am-9:30am work
4:30pm-1:30am drivers wouldn't be in violation if they performed work starting at 9am

 

I understand that. We NEVER work past our 4:30pm-1am schedule.

It was mentioned that I should talk to our safety director and I did. He said we need 8 hours rest. I agreed with him as it pertains to a 10 hour bus route and asked if that applies to an 8 hour bus route as well. He said that's a good question and he will get an answer, and I keep bugging him to see if he got an answer. So I decided to get an answer myself and keep getting transferred to people and departments from PennDot that can't answer.

I don't know if I'm complicating this or not but if there was written language pertaining to 8 hours then it would be less complicated for me. Another driver suggested since we drive 8 and not 10 hours maybe we can be prorated on rest time.

on page 4 of the document...

http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regu...te-Passenger-Carrying-Driver-Guide-To-HOS.pdf

It says the first time limit is the 15 hour time limit. That doesn't apply because we never work 15 hours consectively anyway.

Then the second time limit is the 10 hour driving limit. That doesn't apply cause we drive 8 hours consectively.