Citation for Misusing PC?

Let's say that I was two hours from the home terminal before the weekend when I ran out of driving hours. Then let's say that I considered shutting down for the night at the closest truck stop, but preferred the comforts of my home, along with the legitimate alure of my books and TV that I was looking forward to being entertained by, so I put myself Off-Duty, and activated Personal Conveyance mode, commenting "entertainment". If I were to get inspected by DOT and they noticed my use of PC, what/would there be repercussions? If they cited me for improper use of PC, how much would the citation cost (i.e., how hard would it hit my bank account)?

 

I can’t answer your question but will give some advice and my experience.

I most definitely would have logged PC if I was me and have in the past. I would suggest you put in the comments “Home Time” putting in entertainment could maybe get you cited as it sounds like a BS reason to drive 2 hours. Considering officers are allowed to use their own discretion and it seems everyone has their own interpretation of what PC allows.

During a previous audit I was asked to turn in my last trip logs and the last entry of that trip was a 2.5 hour PC “Home Time”
Nothing was ever said and I passed the audit no problems.

 

you can pc home, but you can't pc to a terminal. Dont know why but I got chewed by a company for doing that. that was it.

 

Eh just throw something like "driving home" or "home time" in the box and it will be fine within reason. 2 hours most cops will ignore it, especially if you have at least 10 off afterwards and your license address is from the same area.

Just so long as you dont go over your 70. Even then most will ignore it....unless you wreck then your screwed in 9 cases out of 10. So use with caution.

 

Who knows but I wouldn't want to test it. My company allots 30 min for PC. Misuse of PC is probably more likely to get you fired than get a citation, assuming you're a company driver.

 

I got a little talking to from the company but they thought I’d driven almost an entire shift on PC, not two hours, so they calmed down when I told them how long I’d used it.

 

That would be two violations:

1. Misuse of PC.
2. Falsification of Logs.

The falsification is much worse than the misuse of PC.

 

The problem comes in you calling your home your "home terminal." They don't have to be the same thing. The only way your house is your home terminal is if you are routinely dispatched out of your house. If not, then it's your house, not "home terminal" and absolutely you can PC there any time you want. "Routinely dispatched out of your house" does not mean being dispatched out of home coming out of home time. It means they send you home to grab trailers, drop trailers, etc. Otherwise, it's not a terminal at all.

 

And unfortunately, that's not true. The purpose of your move matters far more than the details of it. I've PC'd home before loaded because I was going to be taking more than 34 hours off, thus "advancing the load" wouldn't really help me or the company anyway because the forward movement of the load PC is not getting the load there any earlier with me taking several days off at home with the load on my back. When I spoke with the Texas DOT officer for over an hour, he KEPT mentioning the REASON you are moving, or as he put it, "the purpose of the move" is what he cares about. Not whether you're loaded or not, not so much whether you're advancing the load or not. Because your closest parking spot once loaded or unloaded might be advancing the load and you have to do that PC. But then your PURPOSE OF MOVEMENT is not the advancement of the load or empty trailer, its to find parking. And he repeatedly said, "You better take a full 10 hour break after you park if you have to advance your load PC to find parking or I'm going to nail you to the wall." Even though the box will let you PC for 2 hours, take 8 hours off duty, and added up, will give you a 10 hour break, that is NOT LEGAL.