Log Off Duty Driving Home Empty

By the letter of the law, you can do this, provided it doesn't advance you towards your next dispatch. Unless you were taking some time off, you'd have a hard case defending that in an audit if your next dispatch was in California. I'm not gonna go dig, but IIRC, the guidance is if the personal conveyance ends up moving you towards your next load, you're supposed to go back and log it as driving. Like that's going to happen!

 

Yeah, it was back in my Swift days. First time I did it on paper logs, the next two times on electronic logs. I recall the inspector in Chowchilla asked what kind of logs I had, I told her Electronic, she didn't want to see them. She then asked me where I was coming from. I said "Lancaster" which is outside Dallas TX but there is a Lancaster CA near Los Angeles, I just let her think what she wanted to.

Anyway, I say all that, you would think Swift would have caught it in their own internal audit but they never said anything to me about personal conveyance over such long distances.

 

Ive bobtailed all over, crossed state lines and scales too.

There is no problem whatsover. Unless I was overweight and loaded. Then we do business at the scales.

Your post is meaningful and I get it. But with me it's a complete and utter waste because all my life in bobtailing to and from home and even round the home scales included... there was ZERO problem. DOT is not interested in bobtailers. They are just not.

I consider some of those years into the mid 90's the best of transport when you had 300 gallons and literally half a Nation to pick from during your bobtail home Friday. Just need to be in Cincinatti with a load to deliver by 4 am monday is all.

 

It's open to interpretation of the DOT personnel the older guys will let you slide where are the young ones will not. I know of several people have gotten violations over this scenario I will continue to log everything that way nobody can mess with me

 

There used to be an old guy at the lima scale in montana. He was VERY picky.

He even had a quota of 5 a week. And i got the lucky #5 one week.

 

Off-duty driving (personal conveyance) is valid in only 2 scenarios:
1) regular commuting back and forth from home to the "normal work reporting location"
2) short distances to things like restaurants in the vicinity of en-route lodgings

If it is not one of these two scenarios, it is line 3 - Driving time.

Just because you are empty does not change the fact you are driving a CMV.

Dead heading from the last drop is NOT a valid use of this provision.

 

Remember this is what cops are paid for to write tickets. Once you get to court you now have to waste your time and money to prove you are right. This happens all the time. Keep believing the cops are always right, and we can shut down the courts, the whole judicial system, and go straight to jail. Yippee!

 

Well, he is an actually scale master so he goes by the book.....

 

Scalemaster knows the rules better then any of us. Hence, the name.

 

I'm actually more prone to stop a bobtail than a truck with a trailer. Reason= because experience has shown me that many "bob-tailers" do not have log books.