Can a company mandate using sleeper status during 10 Hour Break

I log line 2 as acurately as I can so it matters not to me. It also matters not to me because the truck has to be parked for 10 hours anyway so it really has no bearing on how much money I or anyone else can make. Purely academic discussion as far as I'm concerned.

 

Until you have to prove you got some sleep, defending yourself in a civil suit.

 

We've pretty much covered all the bases but I'm still not sure how to know if it's really dead.

 

Think you missed the point, I'm talking about logging completely off duty even when in the bunk, if you don't enter the sleeper, yes you can log it as off duty, the two scenarios I mention where just that, not to be taken that's the only way

 

Then have a room receipt...

 

I was agreeing with you. If I failed to make that clear, then I apologize. During my 10, I log all time in the sleeper birth as sleeper birth. I make sure that it is atleast 8 hours. I know that 8/2 split reg has to do with teams, but I am a solo driver and following it anyway.

The point I was arguing in this thread had to do with logging OFF-DUTY at a shipper/receiver. Not with what your point is, cuz I agree with it.

 

The 8/2 split has more application to solo operations than teams.

 

Yes you have to log sleeper when you are in the sleeper. Think of Off Duty as a square and Sleeper as a rectangle. They both have four sides and four 90 degree angles. The square is the entire universe. The rectangle is a specific place within that universe. It is a sanctuary.

Most of the problems with logging On Duty at the customer can be immediately solved by logging and being in the Sleeper.

What if there was a murder in the neighborhood and the police canvas and interview witnesses? Your alibi is you were in the Sleeper. Rock Solid.

The daily log is not a Diary, it is a legal document. You can show it to the Internal Revenue Service or have it submitted as evidence in a jury trial where some 4wheeler says you ran them off the road and killed them and you have proof at the time you were in the Sleeper.

By the same token if you logged Off Duty while your body was in the sleeper that is log falsification and the fines range from $250-$11,000 bucks.

Imagine if your Record of Duty Status showed Off Duty and they found your dead body in the Sleeper, your heirs would not receive one thin dime from the carrier or death benefits provider because you were not where you said you were.

 

That might not work...could be that your trainer didn't fully explain things to you and you had a little mix-up, confusing "cruise control" with "auto pilot"...you set it and crawled into the sleeper for a power nap to satisfy the 30 minute break requirement (because dispatch told you this was a hot load & had to get there quick)...while the truck was careening down the highway at 62 1/2 mph...

 

My trainer said it is actually legal to drive the truck from the Sleeper with a string this way you save the 11,14 and 70 hour clocks.

Little known fact too is if you are in a parked commercial vehicle in the front seat but the curtains are closed up that is in fact made the Sleeper 'extended' to include the front cab which the driver would now have to log Sleeper in order to avoid a log falsification charge.