couple of logbook questions

Ok, once again I have to speak up, if you run 70/8 at the end of 70 you have to do a restart, and it is for 34 hours. I have seen numerous posts here of late and it seems that the new HOS is confusing, and it can be. If you want to make it simple run your day like this.....you have 14 hours a day that you can drive, load,unload,fuel and inspect....of that 14 NO MORE than 11 can be spent driving, at the end of your 14 hours take a 10 hour break, you will avoid the confusion, not be in trouble with the DOT and not make yourself crazy trying to figure out all the loop holes.

 

Okay, to start off I'll mention the three rules that you need to remember most.
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§395.3 Maximum driving time for property-carrying vehicles.
Subject to the exceptions and exemptions in § 395.1:

(a) No motor carrier shall permit or require any driver used by it to drive a property-carrying commercial motor vehicle, nor shall any such driver drive a property-carrying commercial motor vehicle:

(a)(1) More than 11 cumulative hours following 10 consecutive hours off duty; or

(a)(2) For any period after the end of the 14th hour after coming on duty following 10 consecutive hours off duty, except when a property-carrying driver complies with the provisions of §395.1(o) or §395.1(e)(2).

(b) No motor carrier shall permit or require a driver of a property-carrying commercial motor vehicle to drive, nor shall any driver drive a property-carrying commercial motor vehicle, regardless of the number of motor carriers using the driver's services, for any period after-

(b)(2) Having been on duty 70 hours in any period of 8 consecutive days if the employing motor carrier operates commercial motor vehicles every day of the week.

(c)(2) Any period of 8 consecutive days may end with the beginning of any off-duty period of 34 or more consecutive hours.
From: FMCSA - Regulations - Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
Disclaimer: These are the most commonly applied rules. There are a few others that apply in special situations, so you should read all of them sometime.
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Logging and HOS explained.
Okay, so to review:
1) You can drive for 11 hours after your 10 hour break.
2) You can accumulate those 11 driving hours only within a 14 hour "window" starting with the first duty minute.
3) Your total number of hours on duty not driving and on duty driving cannot total more than 70 hours in the last 8 days, including today.
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You can drive for 11 hours. This you must memorize, there is no way around it. You can start and stop driving as often as you like, but you must only put 11 hours on line 3 driving.

You can log local driving on line 4. This is all driving done within a city limits with frequent starting and stopping. You can put this down for traffic jams or local pickup/delivery.
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To illustrate the 14 hours.
If you start work at midnight after your 10 hour break you can log anything you want within the next 14 hours, so until 2 pm.


Note that you can only log 11 of those hours on line 3 driving You can also log as many hours off duty or sleeper berth as you want, but that does not change your 14 hour period. Whatever you do you can still not drive past 2 pm. You CAN however WORK past 2pm, such as loading/unloading etc, you just can't drive.
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You can only log 70 hours on duty either
1) In any 8 day period, including today, or
2) Since your last break of 34 hours or more.

The only two things that count towards your 70 hours are what is logged on lines 3 and 4. If you can log any time waiting at a shipper or receiver for them to call your name as off duty line 1 or sleeper berth line 2 then it is in your best interest to do so. This saves some of your 70 hours for later.

It is really quite easy to figure this. You may want a calculator since you will be dealing with a lot of quarter hours. At the end of each day you add up how many hours went on lines 3 and 4. These get noted in the handy chart at the front of the book. At the end of each day you add up the total number of hours in the last 7 days including today. Subtract this number from 70 and that is how many hours you have left for tomorrow. You also need to add up the total number of duty hours in the last 8 days and make sure it does not exceed 70, since that will be a violation.
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You are not REQUIRED to take 34 hours off for every 70 that you work. It is the most efficient, but you can also run gently and never exceed the 70 hours in any 8 day period.

There are two popular methods of managing the 70 hours.

First is to run hard and use 14 hours on duty each day. You will add up 70 hours in 5 days and take your reset on the 6th day. You can then start again on the 7th day and get in 75 or more hours in a 7 day period. 65 driving hours per week at an average of 50 miles per hour is 3250 miles per week possible. Unlikely except with the right company, but possible.

Or you can run gently and not log more than 8.75 hours on duty/driving every day and always have 8.75 hours available for duty the next day. You can log 8.75 duty/driving hours every day for 365 days or more without taking a day off. Out of that you may get 8 driving hours per day or 56 driving hours per week at an average of 50 miles per hour is 2800 possible miles.

The 8.75 hour scenario is more realistic because you will wait at shippers and receivers. Some people like this plan because it is more like a 9to5 type job in pace, except that 8.75 hours is stretched over 14 hours some days.

 

Actually if you are operating within 100 air miles of your terminal and return to your terminal every day, if you do not exceed 12 hours per day, and you have a time card, you do not need to fill out a log book.

However, if you go over 12 hours, you do need to fill one out.

 

It is just a game.
Play it however ya want.
I know, some companies insist on logging when it is not required and if your company does and you have to supply the book, then use Loose Leaf as they're cheaper and mistakes don't eliminate an entire book!!

Live simply so that others may simply live!!

 

probably late on this one,remember you must log on duty if you fueled your own truck,you can flag it and say 10 minutes,but they can question this practice,dot and most companies want you to log 15 mins for this, also have to log 15 mins for pretrip at the start of each trip,that's a fine of 75.or more,86.00 iin me.,if you log pretrip at start and fuel and 7.5 hr driving thats 15&15,leaving you working on duty 8hrs,thats 40& 11.25,you have to add that 15mins pretrip every start of the day.40 plus 22.5o is 62.50 right? you can be on duty 7.5 hrs the next day total,like pretrip 15 mins and 7.25 driving, thats your 70. then the next day is like it would have been if you worked 7 10 hr days,that would be the 8th day off 24 hrs and could drive ,go back and recap hrs on duty,thats fueling pretrip and driving,whatever hrs you gained,may be 7 8 etc,you deduct whatever those hrs were and thats what you have available until the next day,thats the old way,still legal,the new way is have 34 hrs off in a row,24 one day 10 the next,doesn't matter how you got it,must be 34 consecutive hrs off duty.,you regain all 70 hrs at once as soon as that 34hrs is over. you have both options available, the new rule also has a straight 14 hr rule,if you start at 12noon,you can't go past 2am,if you do your in violation.I know all about the splits but don't want to confuse you. I try to load or unload or both,always do pretrip,log fuel stops,then drive like heck till the 14th hr is up,stop for 10 hrs,I log all sleeper,then pretrip exactly ten hrs later,go again get 11 hrs driving,fuel and pretrip on log on duty,total of 11.50 hrs. sleeper again 10 hrs, you cannot stop that 14th hr, if you split sleeper berth you still only have whatever time you would have had up to 14 hrs,you have to deduct that time and have a total of 10hrs off duty before you can go again. you can't fuel or pretrip unless you have a total of 10 hrs in the sleeper .you can unload and load but not log it as on duty.if you do you will violate the 14th hr rule or possibly the 70 hr rule.

 

I just want to clarify that Buck and a half. The 14 and 70 hour rules only apply to DRIVING After the end of your 14 or 70 you can remain on duty for as many hours as you want. You can also return to duty with less than 10/34 off as long as you don't want to DRIVE. The restrictions are only on driving, not working.

It is true that if you do come in and work that you will have to restart your 10/34 break and complete them before driving again.

 

thats a very good wife.....hope you two have a wonderful...grow old and die together kinda marrage....hey man !!!!! buy that girl a diamond !!!!

 

arrrrrgh, has anyone heard of K.I.S.S.? personally this all has me even more confussed than i normally am, but woulnd't it be a lot easier and cheaper when the friendly DOT person says, sorry but you are not in compliance, i'm taking you out of service and by the way here is nice ticket as well. not to mention trying to figgure out the back doors to all this that will probably get you in trouble eventually?

 

Okay, the 34 hour reset is never a mandatory thing. In fact, the use of it an option that the company has and any company can declare that they are not going to make use of the 34 hour reset and not allow their drivers to use it. (Though no compamy that I know of forbids it's use!)

According to the rules, if you go over 70 hours in the 8 day period, then you cannot use the 34 hour break to reset until your hours have dropped below the 70 hour mark. So basically you have to do a day with short enough hours to get below the 70 hour mark.

Remember that when you hit the 8th day without taking a 34, you simply revert to the way that we used to tally up hours. You add up the previous 7 days, and add the current days hours. That in effect drops of the hours from 8 days ago. It doesn;t happen very often, and I have only had one week in the last 2+ years where I didn't pull out a 34 reset, but for that week I reverted to the old way of tracking hours and it worked fine.