Are you attacked for 34hour restarts?

I went into a rest area yesterday on my way home and needed to use the restroom..I had planned on just zipping in and out so after I had finished I was walking out to my truck when i got the surprise of my life....DOT officer was sitting one lane over watching the truckers as they pulled into the area....I had just started up my truck when a man walked over to my truck and tapped on my window and he was a driver of the truck next to mine....He said " mam I don't know if you are logging your rest area break but that officer is here about truckers not logging bathroom breaks"..........I thought he was joking but he wasn't....the officer had approached this trucker to look at his log book to see if he had logged his break.....Is this right? Are we supposed to be logging rest area breaks? I am really puzzled about this and would like to know if anyone else had this experience.......I don't want to get into trouble about logging breaks with my company but at the same time I want to stay clear of DOT also......plz any advice would be a great help!

 

Where is this rest area exactly?

 

FMCSA Regulations
part 395.7

"Question 1: How should a change of duty status for a short period of time be shown on the driver’s record of duty status?"


Guidance: Short periods of time (less than 15 minutes) may be identified by drawing a line from the appropriate on-duty (not driving) or driving line to the remarks section and entering the amount of time, such as "6 minutes," and the geographic location of the duty status change.

In other words, stopping at a rest area is considered a change of duty status. If the time elapsed is less than 15 minutes, you don't have to go to line 1. You can stay on line 3 and simply flag your location in the remarks section.

 

No wonder I see so many drivers dumping cups of piss out the window—they don't want to have to put, "Took a piss - Somewhere, NC", in their logbook.

 

I was in a rest area off I95 N in North Carolina.............so is it regulation if I stay in the rest room more than 15 minutes that I have to log it in the logbook? Makes me want to get a "truck potty" to avoid having all the little stops on my logbook...

 

i told you to stay out of those rest areas,i see you made it home,,,are they fixing your truck?? i'm 40 miles from final,delivering 8 am

 

Read it again . It says periods under 15 minutes must be flagged . Unless you can stay behind the wheel while using your potty you'll still have to flag it .

 

I posted that before I knew what state it was... somehow I knew it though. I must be psychic!

 

after 34 hr rule was first in place inside the scale houses in Ca were posters that read " the 34 hr restart rule is unsafe " apparently CHP did not like the rule shoved down their throat by FMCSA . i have 2 good friends who had books checked at scale on I-8 in Ca both showed 34 hr restarts and both were put down for 10 hrs for being over 70 hrs/8 days. heres the interesting part. neither got tickets or paperwork showing the violation . also these 2 guys were not together. they were there about 60 days apart. i have never heard of this happening anywhere else

 

I Think CA had a problem with it at first, not sure if they have warmed up to the idea.