Elogs and Fema loads with hos suspension

Understood.
But my burning question is what happens to the elog violations that you can not control or edit and are stored for ever more in the cloud on an offsite server somewhere?

 

I've got 42k net pounds of frozen chopped sirloin picked up at an Anaheim cold storage going to McLane Food Service in Houston, am I exempt?

 

There are no violations though. Just because the machine isn't programmed to handle the HOS rules means nothing. It's just a display error at that point.
If you are worried, simply put a note on your logs (Yes, you can add notes to ELD's) that you are under the emergency exemption for hurricane Irma (or whatever)

 

You're funny I guess ya didn't catch the sarcasm. I'm oil field and run under the "local" exemption.

 

You under FEMA?

 

No but that's sort of my point. All the grocers and food service suppliers are going to be doing 3-4 times their normal volume in the coming months.

They are going to have to modify their inbound and outbound logistics and hours to accommodate the increased demands. People gotta eat while they're out of their homes. Restaurants in many cases have to restock because of loss of power. People gotta restock their pantries and refrigerators as they start over from scratch. So looks like any loads going into the Houston area or Florida would be "emergency" shipments.

 

Emergency Declaration Information
To provide vital supplies and transportation services to a disaster area in the United States, emergency declarations may be issued by the President, Governors of States, or FMCSA. These declarations trigger the temporary suspension of certain Federal safety regulations, including Hours of Service, for motor carriers and drivers engaged in specific aspects of the emergency relief effort. See 49 CFR 390.23 for the actual emergency regulation.

Relief from Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations is limited to a maximum of 30 days, unless extended by FMCSA itself.

The information below reflects currently available relief:

1. Drivers responding to provide "direct assistance" to an "emergency" meeting the definitions in 49 CFR 390.5 and declared by FMCSA or a governor, are exempt from applicable regulations in all States on their route to the emergency , even though those States may not be involved in the emergency or stated in the declaration of emergency.
2. These exemptions, when in effect, only apply to 49 CFR Parts 390-399. They do NOT exempt drivers/carriers from the requirements relating to CDL, drug/alcohol, hazardous materials, size & weight, or State/Federal registration and tax requirements. (However, a Governor's Declaration may add some of those exemptions - read the declaration for details.)
3. Even if an Emergency Declaration is still in effect, the emergency must be on-going and you must be providing direct emergency assistance in order to be exempt from safety regulations.
4. The list of Emergency Declarations below may not be complete. Declarations may be in effect even if not listed here. Read the declaration itself for all details.
5. There is no requirement to carry a copy of the declaration in the vehicle unless stated so in the declaration itself.
6. Drivers and carriers should coordinate with State emergency officials before providing assistance. State regulations regarding size and weight, permits, taxes, etc. may not have been waived.
7. Even though safety regulations may be suspended, drivers and carriers are expected to use good judgment and not operate vehicles with fatigued or ill drivers, or under any conditions presenting a clear hazard to other motorists using the highways.

 

Back in 94' we had hauled military loads to the ports asap for Korea one season for a few months.

Logs? They did not exist. If the Law saw two artillery peices on the back of that trailer they aint bothering you none. Fortunately that leader had a heart attack and we went back to running logs and potato chips.

There are times this Nation requires you to run until you drop. I can do 9 days and part of the 10th night, that's about 4 trips back and forth coast to coast. But I need some drugs, coffee and smokes to make it happen dosed appropriately.

That was a long time ago. Aint no freight worth that short of war now. A damaged or destroyed state or city etc after a hurricane does qualify. They need all the help you can get to them asap. It's a form of war. You would want the same for your area if you got ravaged.

 

This is your answer. Under ELD regs, all "movement" of the truck needs to be accounted for. In other words, if a CMV is moving, WHO is driving it and WHY? This is a simple, but accurate way to think about your question. It could be a CDL driver hauling freight. It could be a mechanic doing a 10 mile test drive after a repair. It could be a yard-worker who is moving trailers from one area to another on the property. It could be my great Aunt Penelope. But the movement needs to have somebody attached to it in the cloud. That "somebody" can be a specific driver - like company driver Ed Jones, or it could be a generic account, like "Jones Trucking shop mechanic."

"FEMA-exempt" driving is very similar to "Ag-exempt" driving that many farm haulers can use, except without the 100/150 mile radius limit. You are supposed to account for that movement, but there are no HOS rules attached to it. No violations to ever explain in the cloud. Now, you "could" keep annotating in the admin cloud of the ELD account all of that unassigned movement manually. That would get tedious and painful. The best way is for the admin to change that driver "ruleset" to "ELD-Exempt" until they are done driving under FEMA-suspended HOS, or Ag Farm Exempt HOS, etc. The driver still logs into the ELD, the movement is recorded, the hours are recorded, and nobody has to manually edit anything except for the driver to make a daily remark at the bottom "FEMA exempt." Takes 10 seconds. When the driver is no longer hauling the FEMA load, the admin changes the ruleset for that person back to 8/70 longhaul (or whatever their normal rule is.) All proper ELD makers have this option. By the way, if YOU ARE the Admin of your operation and you are the driver, then YOU change the ruleset yourself. If not, you need to get your ELD admin to do it.

 

Had to come back to edit... The direct answer to your question is you log what you can and when you run out of time you just let the log continue.

Take a little time on the fmcsa.gov site and look over the different states executive orders and act accordingly. It's very clear. Nothing ambiguous.

I work in the NE and am currently under executive order exemptions for the commodity I move between New York state and Virginia. It's basically a needed commodity based exemption to sustain the needs of the area that is directly affected or could be affected as a result.