Hours of Service Question...

The company has the choice of individually assigning drivers to either rule.

 

It is up to the company which rule the individual driver uses.

 

I may be wrong, but I believe you are over on your hours even if they run the 70/8 rule. 5 days at 14 hours a day is 70 correct? you can't even run recap hours cause you run out of hours 2 days before you would get to them. Your company is dead wrong. you would have to take the 6th and 7th day off to reset your hours. Your running illegally every week. You can call oida in Kansas city MO and they can probably give you all the answers you need, But they are wrong, your company that is, even if you do 65 hours in the 6 days your still going to be over.

 

He stated he works 60 to 65 hours in 5 days, he is legal. 5*12 =60 5*13 = 65 He still has 5 hours available to drive on day 6, and can work even more, just can't drive, once he has reached the 70 mark.

 

The key here is whether the carrier operates 7 days a week. From the OP it would seem they do not. Question 6 from the guidance seems pretty clear. The word 'must' doesn't leave anything open for 'interpretation'. A carrier who does not operate 7 days of the week does not get to choose the 70/8.

quote
Question 6: If a motor carrier operates under the 70-hour/8-day rule, does any aspect of the 60-hour rule apply to its operations? If a motor carrier operates under the60-hour/7-day rule, does any part of the 70-hour rule apply to its operations?

Guidance:
If a motor carrier operates 7 days per week and chooses to require all of its drivers to comply with the 70-hour/8-day rule, the 60-hour/7-day rule would not be applicable to these drivers. If this carrier chooses to assign some or all of its drivers to the 60-hour/7-day rule, the 70-hour rule would not be applicable to these drivers. Conversely, if a motor carrier does not operate 7 days per week, it must operate under the 60-hour/7-day rule and the 70-hour rule would not apply to its operations.
/quote

 

Only if they operate motor vehicles every day of the week.

 

What your both missing is if they run one truck on one sunday once a year, they have met the FMSCA requirement of operating 7 days a week. No where does the FMSCA require continuous 7 days a week operation.

Even one truck finished up the saturday run at midnight plus 1 minute, will satisfy the requirement of operating 7 days a week. Or a truck starting at 11:59 pm on sunday night to begin the monday runs.

 

Real world, none of this is that big of an issue. DOT officers have a good idea what rules you run under. I would wager to say over 95% of 6 day drivers don't log anyway. The ones that do simply need to tell the officer they do. DOT officers by default will assume you are on a 7 day schedule and check for 70 hours. Best advice is to contact safety and do as they say.