Fueling while on Personal Conveyance (PC)?

Fueling enhances operational readiness.. Would you agree with that statement?

 

The scalehouse attendant asks for your logs and in the last 8 days you bought fuel one time. Your logs show you drove 4000 miles on one fillup.
What kind of explanation will he accept?

 

I deadheaded PC from Texas to California when I was with Swift. In those days they didn't have a mileage restriction for PC for their owner ops like they do today. But what I would do is get fuel On Duty along the way and switch back to PC for driving. the 14 would tick down like it does but since I was PC it never went into violation. I slept when I was tired and drove when I felt rested, most relaxing trip of my whole trucking career.

 

Sorry officer, when I was asleep a fuel fairy showed up, and filled my tank for me

 

If you are on personal conveyance, with all of it's implications of improper and fraudulent interpretations of the HOS rules, there would be many questions raised. Theoretically PC is used for "short" distances to nearby dining, sleeping accommodations, and home.
Officer Barney Fife and his crack team of investigators might have some questions:

Why would you need to fuel when the truck has a range of easily 1000 or more miles? Or why didn't you fuel the truck before going on PC, or log it driving/on duty driving to the fuel location, then go on PC.
In other words is it worth the time saved, 15 minutes out of 70 hours allowed to risk running afoul of the authorities? Are you going to get caught. Probably not. Is your company safety dept going to care, maybe.

 

You won’t get caught but if a fatality happens and even if it’s not your fault every thing better match up. Lawyers will pin your company with a lawsuit and you with a manslaughter. Saving 15 mins isn’t worth going to the pokey.

We had a driver recently leave the yard a few minutes before logging in. He technically jumped his ten by a few minutes. Cause the log was acting up and he knew he could without getting caught. During his route after being logged in. Well a motorcyclist decided to run a redlight and go under his trailer. Decapitated the motorcyclist. After the lawyers dug into everything with a audit. My company got sued for 10 million+ and he got manslaughter charges cause of the log. Loss of CDL. They reduced it to probation for 3 years and gave him his CDL back. Any log violations in the probation period his manslaughter charges come back. So is not fueling on the proper line worth it to save 15 min? No way.

 

Company drivers and leased on O/O can do whatever pleases them with Personal Convenience. If your company get audit and fined, its not your problem. One of my last company said its ok to use PC to take truck to the shop. FMCSA clearly say NO. Oh well, not my problem.