DOT at rest areas and truck stops, will they wake you up?

I beat a ticket in Pa. by stating the Officer didn’t give Me a chance to catch up. Had a copy of the regs. Judge made a copy. Afterwards Cop says “ But you didn’t even have a log book”!!! True but you didn’t give me a chance, I could have made one up on paper. Lol .Afterwards I re read regs to say, the rule applies to OOS criteria only. Still subject to ticket. What surprised Me is regs say if no log for current day or PREVIOUS DAY, , if all previous days,(6) I guess, you’re allowed to catch up.

 

The best one I’ve seen was on a Saturday, heading east on I-80. First rest area, had a sign Truckers Free Coffee!! Pulled in and DOT checked my log book. Never got any coffee either. One of my first trips to Pa. I reluctantly am going to Pittsburgh on Monday. I try to avoid Pa., too many times, been hassled there. They can’t bother you on private property, Ohio and Michigan will wake you up and maybe ticket you for parking on a ramp, rest areas included.

 

I drive through new york and PA and can confirm that I get pulled into one of them per day. Really sucks.. Can usually tell they are open when the pilot in Bath,NY is full at 11am.

 

I have a log book that I use very rarely, at most a couple of times a month (I am local within the air mile). If they find it and find a mistake from a month ago, will I be fined?

 

Motor Carrier has to retain it 6 months against audit.

If you are the motor carrier then you get the fine. If you are just a driver, you have been subject to company policy for logs turned in with mistakes, errors and not legal etc. It is understood that the company would have made you correct that log.

I used to turn in pretty pristine logs out of a extra log book using two others as worksheets. It was outrageous. If they really examined the truck's activity with those logs they would find a range of errors, pertaining to average speed. If HHG said this miles to that town, and today's GPS was very precise, then my logs would fail.

 

In over 8 years out here I have not had a single problem with DOT.

I'm 'wondering' what you all are doing so differently.

 

You are only REQUIRED to give them that last 8 days of logs. So, don't give them any more than that. If you hand them a log book that goes back 8 months, they CAN go through the whole thing and pop you for every error they find. Not saying they will. Just that they can.

 

AZ too. Although I didn't get a ticket. He woke me up and gave me my only log book violation.

Course, it turns out there was a NO PARKING sign. Didn't know that with all the other trucks parked there. And naturally I was the last mohican still there when he showed up.

 

CVSA issues guidance discouraging random inspections when drivers are in off-duty status, sleeping

 

Do you drive for uber?