Do you log on duty for tarping ?

The two 1-5 am periods was a short lived thing. Before the change you could be on duty 15 hours and drive for 10, no 34 hour reset and you could stop you clock anytime and you had to recap all the tine. We used to come in in the morning, make a few moves then go off duty for a few hours then make moves at night all the time. It was waaaay more flexible but easier to abuse.

 

I want to add something here as an example. As you know I work for a very small carrier. For the most part I log everything the way I do it. The only time I'll play with the on duty and off duty thing is running west. I can do CA and back in 6 or 7 days of hard running. Problem is that by day 7 I've hit my 70 unless I take 34 off out west. I'd rather not have to do that. I'd rather show a little less time on duty here and there and make it home. My carrier gets no benefit out of it. The load will sit for a day when I get home unless the local guy has nothing to do and then he will deliver it. Now instead of a day sitting in aatruck stop in LA I'm at home doing my own thing. I'm usually home for 2-3 days between trips anyways so why would I want to burn off time forcing me to spend another night in the truck.

When I'm east of I-35 I'm rarely away from home for more than 3-4 nights with the same 2-3 off in between. No real need at that point to worry about the 70.



I also routinely spend 12+ hrs on a job site waiting to unload. They could knock on my door at any time of day depending on when they are ready to go. According to the rules since I'm responsible for the truck and the load during that whole time so I'm supposed to be in duty. During that time I might get out and untarp or unstrap the load or maybe just one piece at a time. There's no way I'll be logging that all on line 4. I'll show an hour or 2 when I get there or before I leave for unload but the rest will stay off duty or sleeper.

 

It's a shame that the laws had to change to support the lowest common denominator like they did. I never got to use the old rules as they were gone before I ever even got my normal DL.

The 1-5 thing was ridiculous. Pretty much screwed anybody running 3rd shift forcing them to take 3 days off work to get that reset in.

 

Why do you work for free?

 

Technically you can not log off duty, but you can sit in the sleeper and log sleeper berth.

 

No sense logging off duty anyway unless you're going to get what you need for a split or a full 10. It doesn't stop your clock unless you take an entire 10 hour break.

 

It’s not about stopping the clock, it’s about extending the 70.

 

Spent over 4 hours securing and tarping this load. Logged every minute of it on duty. Could i have cheated and saved 3+hours on my 70? Yep. But the way i look at it is if i need to cheat to maximize income then i don't have a logging problem, i have a income problem.

 

Ya,Ever so Often you run across a "Smart Scalemaster",and they can figure out "Speeding",not logging "Fuel Sops",not "on duty " for Tarping...WTF.JMO

 

If you can legally log sleeper berth than you can watch Netflix in the front seat and log off duty.