Hours of service questions and answers

Why only 5??

If you take the 2 at lunch and the 8 later, doesn't the total of 10 start a new 14?

 

The way I understand it it starts a new 14 but not a new 11. You count the 6 because its in the middle of your "10 hr break". The way I understand it you could drive the next five, take another 2 and get another 6 hours to drive after the 2. Someone clarify this for me please.

 

Exactly how long can you hold your water? Or do you just like starving yourself? Smart-alec comments aside, split breaking doesn't work if there is too much time between the 2 and 8-hour breaks. There comes a point where you may as well just take a 10.

Yes. Any combination of a 2-hour and 8-hour break taken within a 14-hour period restarts both the 11 and 14-hour clocks, starting from the end of the earlier of the 2 or 8-hour breaks.

Remember, the 8-hour break must be logged on line 2. It must be in the sleeper, or it's a violation! 2-hour breaks can be logged on either line 1 or 2.

You can extend your 14-hour work day by taking at least an 8-hour break during the the 14-hour period. The 14-hour clock is extended by whatever is left over after subtracting the difference between the beginning of the 14-hour period to the beginning of the 8-hour break. This does not restart either of your 11 or 14-hour clocks - you still only have a total of 11-hours to drive during the extended 14-hour period.

Confusing? Yup!! It's all a part of learning your driving strategy during your training, and from your mistakes. Sorry... there's probably no way of just "getting it" unless you happen to be a major logbook geek right from the start. You might surf over to the FMCSA website... they have some worked examples showing both correct logs and logs with violations.

 

^^^ I took your advice and found this from the FMCSA web site:

This is all very enlightening to me as I quit splitting my sleeper way back when all this stuff was still being hashed out. My thoughts are tho is that if drivers are scratching their heads at this, I'm sure most DOT inspections will go a lot smoother without all this complicated stuff in my log book. However, I will most likely utilize this rule to get me to the house quicker.

Thanks you guys!

 

I was thinking that the FMCSA website should simply have some type of log calculator that could allow data to be entered and tell you if it is right or not.

I've done some google-ing and found an easy and cheap program that can be useful in helping one double check the 'legalness' of a day or weeks worth of logging.

Free to try and pretty cheap to buy. Here's a screenshot of what I did with it:



Google = 'excalibur1+DailyLog' to check it out.

 

I find it's very useful on making load/unload days work better, and use it regularily. Comment from DOT Inspector: "Oh, I see you know how to do split berthing!"

Actually, the thing that makes a log inspection go quickly and easily is just having a neat logbook. If it's messy and hard to read, the inspectors assume you're trying to hide something, and look that much more closely at your log. At least, that's what they tell me...

 

"Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then."

Logs, seems you still have the same old life after about 18 months when I visited last???

Do you need a neighbor?

 

Don't forget about needing to have it like this: 10hr break, Split Sleeper, 10hr break. If you don't have a 10 in before and after they'll nail you to a cross. Split Sleeper is only for extending out a period in order to make a pick-up and delivery on-time with-in a range shorter than you can make with a bulk 10 and your regular 14/11. Most of the time it's easier to just drive full out then go on duty when it's time to unload then take another 10. You can work on duty regardless of anything else (except your 70) as long as you remember not to drive again until you've done a 10.

lol Pro'ly just threw grease on the fire... sorry.