Can I be forced to use 16 hour rule?

No need to parse words. I am referring to length of duty time in which you could still possibly drive.

 

It depends? I would call Al Sharpton possibly.

 

If you drive for 16 hours:

#1 Your are in violation of DOT regs and will be put out of service

#2 You are risking your life and others lives on the road.

#3 You risk of falling asleep and going off the road with possibility of looing you life or someone elses.

Do the smart thing. Pull over to a safe location and got to sleep or turn in your keys.

 

You sure can't drive for 16 hrs but you can use 16 hrs to get your 11 hours of driving in.

 

The 16 hour exception has two parts: One is commonly called the "short haul exception" and that is what people are referring to when they say once in seven days, and yes I think a company can force you to use it same as they can force you to use all available hours. You still can't drive more than 11, though. All it does is open up the 14 hour window by two extra hours. It was designed to get day cabs back to the terminal, but you don't have to be in a day cab to use it. BUT your trip has to start and end at the same location, which doesn't necessarily have to be the terminal. It can be your house if you started from there and end there. That's the key; must start and end at the same place wherever that is, and only once in the last (here's a key part) seven TOUR OF DUTY days. Don't mess up and think it's just seven consecutive days. It's PREVIOUS SEVEN TOURS OF DUTY.

The other that people talk about is commonly called a "safe haven move". That's the one that when an unplanned and unforeseeable event has caused you to run out of hours and there's no place to park you can continue to the next closest "safe haven" which means a place that is safe and legal for you to park and has a restroom. You have to be careful with how you use it, though. The event has to be unplanned and not reasonably foreseeable. An accident that shut down the interstate for five hours; yes. Rush hour traffic in a big city; no. You've been driving more than a day so you know to plan accordingly for rush hour traffic. Same with storms. To use it for a weather delay you'd have to be able to convince them that weather event was unforeseeable and good luck with that in today's world. A tornado sure. They do tend to pop up pretty fast but other than that it's gonna be pretty hard to convince the DOT you had no way of knowing about the weather and bad roads.

Hope this helps.

 

See above.

 

Totally true. I keep forgetting about the reset thing resetting everything thing. Thanks for the correction. Folks, do keep in mind, though, that without the reset, if you are running on recap - then watch the seven TOUR OF DUTY thing and not the seven consecutive day common mislead.

Thanks again Sublime.

 

Learn to just say no, those two letters have always worked for me.

 

Why am I not surprised you worked for Con-way when you asked this. Due to the ineptitude of the supervisors and their lack of planning, they force you to use your 16 hr. rule once a week. I would be forced to use mine most Friday nights. Well that is the nature of con-way work you into the ground. As if working 14 hr days isn't already enough.

Sadly under the short haul exemption, you can be requested to use the 16 hr rule.

 

Taken from the HOS Logbook Examples published by the FMCSA:

So, FIVE duty periods, regardless of 24 hour 'days', and effectively limiting use of the 16 hour exception to once every 7 consecutive 24 hour periods (days). But a 34 hour restart also restarts the 16 hour exception availability. Clear as mud?