Logging hometime?

That would be considered reasonable distance. So long as your company has relieved you of duty. While I saw a comment of Line 1, I would use Line 4. I know of a Line 4 provision, not of the Line 1 provision.

It's a mear formality. And technically your are driving. But your company has relieved you of active duty status, and you are not attached to a trailer hauling freight in accordance to your job duties.

You can find a ton of information regarding this issue within Canada, and theirs is slightly differant. But looking for it in the US, is like digging through a haystack looking for a needle. When I find the exact provision it is allowed under, I will post it. If someone doesn't beat me to it.

Once you leave the house, I would advise using Line 3 to report to work. Because your are technically once again reporting for work and carrying out your required job duties.

I worked for a company once, that wanted me to use Line 4 both ways. I refused. Simply because when I got to the yard, they would immediately stick me under a hot load..that required 11 hours driving, right out of the gate. I lived 2 hours from the yard. They considered it reasonable, I didn't.

 

Danc694u,Show me federal law, state law or case law to back up your advice.I saw none in your stated opinion.I'll be more than happy to cover all three.

 

Don't get yer panties in a wad. I told everyone in my last post I would show the interretation as soon as I found it. And I have

This also covers logging on Line 1 as another poster offered. It makes no mention of line 4, until the driver returns to work.

Please note....This is NOT a truck driver providing the interpretation. But an Officer of the law. IE Somebody that should be a bit more versed on what it is we want to know.

 

Unless the rules have changed in the last couple yrs....

Once you are relieved from duty by your company & your trailer is unladen, you are no longer subject to FMCSA rules & may use your tractor & trailer as personal conveyance while logged log off-duty.

There's no distance restriction for personal conveyance as there is, although vague, for ladened off-duty travel while enroute to a load or delivery.

You are still responsible for making sure you don't go where a cmv of your size is restricted.

It's all in the rules if you can manage to put them all in the proper order.

I have had this conversation in writing between a seasoned investigator & the FMCSA answer people.
The investigator said no, you cannot do this & the FMCSA said yes you can.
I've seen writings from other drivers showing the same discrepency between officers & the officer's own answer people.

There are caveats to this & you can bet the FMCSA investigator will apply his/her personal interpretation to these rules to damage you.

My reasoning runs like this.
Look up who do the FMCSA rules apply to & when.
Look up off-duty & how/when that occurs.
Look up personal conveyance & the circumstances under which it is approved.

I'll shortcut it for you.

The FMCSA HOS recordkeeping rules apply only to vehicles/drivers actively engaged in the act of interstate (& some intrastate) commerce or any other paid work in or out of trucking.

Off-duty applies only when you are relieved of any work related responsibilities by your company.

Personal conveyance use of a cmv requires that you are off-duty, your truck & trailer are unladen & naturally, you have company permission to drive it as personal conveyance.

The caveats are that the FMCSA investigator & whoever may be suing you for an accident involvement will say you are never off-duty while driving a cmv whether it's empty or not despite written rules.

More importantly they will also try to say that you are trying to cheat the HOS rules by calling your personal travel fraudulent if you're headed for or conveniently end up near a new loading point.

Again, I haven't looked up the rules pertaining to this in a couple yrs so things may have changed.

The rules for off-duty travel are vague & the only guidance you'll find for it pertain to ladened travel while enroute to a load or delivery. In that circumstance you can travel off-duty(w/tractor & trailer) for a "reasonable distance" which still wasn't defined as of a couple yrs ago.

I believe guidance for true personal conveyance is missing because it is not within the purvue of the FMCSA to regulate.
That is why I believe you only see rules for off-duty travel for LADEN vehicles ENROUTE.
My guess anyway.

Another misgiving I find from FMCSA investigators surrounds the travel of a cmv to & from its terminal or dispatching point & home.

The guidance for this mostly pertains to drivers who live somewhere near their yard & who regularly return to their yards & go home at the ends of their tours of duty. It does not lend itself readily at all to OTR drivers whose dispatch point or office is inside their truck or their home terminal is so far away as to make regular travel there impractical.

Do be sure that if you use your cmv as personal conveyance that it IS for personal conveyance & not performing any kind of work for the company.

This means:
: You are not dragging that trailer or moving the tractor to bring either one to a repair facility. That's on-duty work.
: You're not going to the parts store to buy anything that will be used in or on the truck. That's on-duty.
: Supposedly, buying fuel along the way is also an on-duty thing.

( I find the last 2 above a big issue & I don't agree with them but drivers have been dinged for it.
I figure if you're off-duty & fit the other tenants of personal conveyance, it shouldn't matter what you buy along the way as long as your boss didn't tell you to. Same with fueling. You'd have to put gas in a borrowed pickup too. I don't know how the cops & courts figured this one. It stinks I know that.)

: You are not under any kind of "proveable" psuedo dispatch that you know is aimed at getting you closer to a load. i.e. Your dispatcher says you're off-duty but head for such & such so when you become ready for duty you'll be someplace I can get a load for you easier. "Wink Wink". This is exactly what the investigator is explicitly looking for.

Lastly, to answer the posters question; If when you dropped that trailer you became off-duty & are not directed to go to a certain place, you can bobtail anywhere you want off-duty. You could also drag an unladen trailer as well under these circumstances.

 

Glad to see someone else that knows something on this topic. These drivers with law degrees were starting to kill me

Now if I can just find a couple that know something about running an entire country...I'll be fine.

 

i was stopped on home time bob tailing to walmart buy a state trooper and was asked for a log book told him i was on home time and going to the store as i didn't not have a car at the time and he asked to see my satellite and show him my dead head orders for home time and i asked if it was ok to log line 1 as i was using for personal conveyance and he said yes but that is only my experience with this may not be the same for all state troopers or all states

 

Here's the official word . Question 26 http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regu...764&section=395.8&section_toc=1942&guidence=Y

 

Here is the regulation apply it how you would like but follow company regulations as well .
It would/could be considered off duty not on-duty not driving. HOwever keep in mind it states within reasonable miles.

You can NOT log as a 100 air mile radius driver because you have not meet all the requirements
The driver operates within a 100 air-mile ( 115 statute miles) radius of the normal work reporting location, and
The driver returns to the work reporting location and be released from duty within 12 consecutive hours, and

Question 26: If a driver is permitted to use a CMV for personal reasons, how must the driving time be recorded?

Guidance: When a driver is relieved from work and all responsibility for performing work, time spent traveling from a driver's home to his/her terminal (normal work reporting location), or from a driver's terminal to his/her home, may be considered off-duty time. Similarly, time spent traveling short distances from a driver's en route lodgings (such as en route terminals or motels) to restaurants in the vicinity of such lodgings may be considered off-duty time. The type of conveyance used from the terminal to the driver's home, from the driver's home to the terminal, or to restaurants in the vicinity of en route lodgings would not alter the situation unless the vehicle is laden. A driver may not operate a laden CMV as a personal conveyance. The driver who uses a motor carrier's CMV for transportation home, and is subsequently called by the employing carrier and is then dispatched from home, would be on-duty from the time the driver leaves home.

A driver placed out of service for exceeding the requirements of the hours of service regulations may not drive a CMV to any location to obtain rest.

That's out of the book my opinion is some where in the past thread