Bare min "on-duty" time and Legal?

I can verify this to be accurate. The last road side I had was probably 6 months ago. I got a clean bill, but before the officer parted ways, I specifically asked him if the law requires us to fill out a DVIR....he said, "Not by law, but if your company requires it, you are probably better off to do it".

Break the rules at your own expense as long as you understand the consequences.

 

If I may, I would love to use your comment to change this topic a bit. There is a wealth of information out there that drivers for some reason will not tap. Almost every DOT/CVSA/MCSAP certified cop can be asked questions like you just reported doing. In fact I spoke to a Virginia cop about this very subject some time ago. He was actually frustrated that some drivers simply refuse to ask him for help. He gave me an example. A few years ago he was working in Roanoke. Was working the scales that day and had a driver ask to speak to him. This driver was simply confused about brake adjustments and just decided to ask a cop. he put his coveralls on and went out and with the driver beside him showed him what he looks for. What happens most of the time when there is an interaction between a DOT cop and a driver both of them develop an attitude that turns into a weewee,ing contest. Guess who's water goes higher? I was stopped by a DOT cop once. The guy was not happy and every other word out of his mouth was some kind of a put down or demanding. After about 2 minutes of this I balked. I just stood there and looked at him. I looked into that guys eyes and asked him what did I do that put him in such a foul mood. he made a threat to arrest me, but after about 30 seconds started dropping the attitude and explained to me what was wrong. I actually had some violations and one was even a log problem. I asked the cop how he wanted that log to be and he took a few minutes to show me. The other things were relatively minor and I was told to fix them. I got a clean inspection though and $25 bucks for it. I made a joke in this thread about giving some Ga cops donuts. I actually offered a DOT cop one once. He smiled and told me he should have me arrested for trying to kill him. He was a diabetic. The mood turned light and that was another clean $25 dollar inspection. DOT cops put their pants on one leg at a time just as we drivers do. treat them with respect ask them questions and drop the attitudes. You can learn a lot from these guys if you can get your feet out of your backholes long enough.

 

Paper logs are have times broken up into 15min blocks. I think this is where 15min logging comes from. In reality, it does not take me 15 mins to fuel, I don't really do a 15 post or pretrip.

On elogs, I log 5-8 mins of actual, accurate time for each on-duty activity like pre/post, fuel, scale, etc.

 

this is a great forum! we have all become expert lawyers now! no joke!

 

I got a call from safety and they told me to stop fueling off duty. I have to log 15 minutes.

 

What made you think it could be off duty? You are in fact working....

 

Cus for me the real work begins after I finish and pulled up. Since they won't give us baskets I gotta carry two 1 liters of water, two double shot espresso, two fiber bars, a cup of eggs, and a cup of veggies with dip. Now standing there waiting your turn and not dropping anything, thats work! My goodness. I should log that, not me picking my nose at the fuel island. I tell ya it's ### backwards right there.

I am behaving now though, promise.

 

I would not use the word Lawyer/Attorney in the way you did. because while I have a serious doubt there are actual Attorney's posting using that word can be considered an insult much like Supertrucker is.

With that said there are several people that post here that have a great knowledge of 49 CFR as it relates to this industry. They don't post bull or myths. When they make a comment they link to the actual language.

One thing though that frustrates me is how the FMCSA writes these regulations.Take the subject of this thread. There are more then one place in the regs where the FMCSA infers inspections. Most of us know what happens to a driver if an unsafe thing is found. However not one single clear direct word is used to mandate an inspection, not even by another person. The FMCSA makes these inference's all over the regs on a lot of subjects. This sets up grey area's that cause disagreements and allows the state DOT to make life hard on a driver!