A newbie question about split sleeper

I figure by the time a DOT officer wades thru all this data, he's ready to say "you're good."

 

First off.

Your use of off duty is a bit excessive. Quite a hotel billing perhaps? Just because you are off duty 10 hours does not mean you are rested.

If your truck is equipped with a sleeper, use it.

If you have day one 70 hours to work with, you can run 11 hours driving before having to stop and hit the sleeper. OR>>.... Run say 5 hours then hit sleeper 4 hours, then finish your 6 hours hit sleeper 8

I forget exactly what the stretch of time frame is required, in my day you are allowed 10 (11 now) after a 8 hour break or at least that much off duty meaning HOME or Hotel. In my day Home also meant Company bunkhouse above the dispatchers and driver room. (Not anymore.. not usually.)

These logs seem to be ok, but barely. You have a excessive amount of 15 minute and half hour times onduty.. what in the world are you thinking? Once you start driving you stay driving.

In my time we drove 5 then slept 4 then drove 5 then slept 4 and you can keep it up until you ran out of 70 hours or... maxed out your 16 hours total drive, on duty with the old hours of service due to fuel, pretrips etc accumulating. in the last 24 hours time.

 

In the real world you'll probably be on eLogs and this will keep you updated on what you can and can not drive. Also, practical situations where split sleeper is truly beneficial or needed are rare.

Main point is, split sleeper with any off time less then 10 hours NEVER gets you a fresh 11/14

 

STexan has it right. You cannot interrupt that working time. You gotta carry it all the way through.

Recently we had a driver here on the forums trying to load in little rock after like a 11 hour deadhead from atlanta but his time in the sleeper made him late already for the delivery the next morning. Impossible situation. It could have been fixed three ways.

New appt time further out, Team operation straight through (You can run 2 people 24/7 as we did without hardly stopping) or interchanging with a fresh driver with hours to burn in Little rock after loading or letting HIM load your empty trailer.

 

Those are legal splits. just remember you're splitting the 14 as well as the 11. So Log 1 shows 6.5 hours on duty and 5 hours driving. After an 8 hours sleeper would leave a balance of 7.5 on the 14 and 6 on the 11.

Where drivers get really messed up is when they take a little break here and a little break there and a little on duty here and a little on duty there it can make the log very hard to calculate. But it doesn't have to be.

So in Log 2 beginning at 0730, you count over 7.5 and make a dot at 1500, that is your 14 hour limit, and make one more dot at 1330 that is your 11 hour limit. Any time up to the limit, (even after) you may take a 2 hour break to 'complete' the 10 hour break. You may even take a longer break than 2 hours, it just shortens up your available drive time because the 14 hour clock is ticking.

In Log 2 you used 5.25 against your 14 so after a 2 hour break you make a dot at 2330 that is the new 14 hour limit. You also used 4 hours of drive time so go ahead and make a dot at 2145 for your new 11 hour limit. But I see what it looks like you decided to go ahead and take a full consecutive 10 hour break to clean it up as it were.

Do be careful, if your truck has a sleeper and you're showing that much time off duty a dot might ask you where you spent the time. It is absolutely against the law to log off duty when your body is in the sleeper.

Another quick cheap and free way to double check your splits is to download some software at logbook com called eclipse. Free trial for so many days, but a little trick is after the free trial and you want to double check your logs is to back up the date a year or so before your trial started and the software works, the grid will be accurate , just not the dates.

People will say the use for split breaking is few and far between, I disagree. Use it to flip your clocks from night driving to day driving, or say you're at the shipper and been there for 3-4 hours, why not log it all sleeper for 8 hours and get rolling, use it to your advantage rather than drive the few remaining hours you have left after getting loaded then taking a full 10 hour break, in essence just made your actual downtime 13-14 hours off including the loading time. Instead you used the loading time as part of your 10 hour break and will then be 3-4 or however many hours it took them to load ahead of schedule. It is also useful to eliminate the 30 minute break requirement.

I use it all the time. My load day I might only get 450 miles or so. Next day looks like 650 and the next day looks like 750 miles using split breaks over and over. Of course that means running all around the 24 hour clock as your hours materialize after each break but it definitely helps me do some serious distance efficiently without being in the seat for more than 3-4 hours at a time. Usually run 3 hours, then fuel, then run 2 more hours then shut down for 2hours, then run for 3 more hours then a short break then 3 more hours then an 8 hour sleeper, see it breaks up the drive time nicely and still very efficient.

 

I wonder if split sleeper is tested on in school? It should not be if it is. And I'm pretty sure you never be tested on split sleeper at the DMV.

In the refrigerated world I work in there are occasions where I make sure any break/stop that potentially exceed 2 hours is logged sleeper -just in case- a split might mean the difference between a missed/made appointment the next day. But it is rare it turns out the split sleeper was "needed"

 

I see a problem at the end f the first day the 8 hour sleeper doesn't extend your fourteen by 8 hours , it pauses your 14 hour clock so if you had 7.5 hours left on your fourteen when you went into sleeper you will have 7.5 hours when you finish your 8 hour sleeper

 

I'm going to have to see this stated or shown where someone was ticketed for this. Really the sleeper berth option was created for team operations so if a cop wonders how you traveled as far as you did yesterday, they see sleeper berth, then they need to ask who your co driver is.

Off duty means you are not working or otherwise performing any duties. Period. Makes no difference where your body is and I challenge any cop to make me pay because I might have been sleeping in sleeper while logging Off Duty

 

He only used 7.25 of his available 7.5 after coming out of the sleeper. So he's good.

The 2 hours off duty count *against* the 14 but they also count *for* the 10.

Now if the 2 hour break exceeded the 1500 time dot, it would start to erode his next balance of 11 and 14 pretty bad. That is where drivers start getting into serious trouble with split breaking.