HOS new rules

Funny how that works huh? Just cause some paper pushers said it was the law, everyone else says its unsafe if you bemd the rules alittle. But as soon as the law changes thier tune changes to "Man, I really like this. I feel more rested than ever." Which is what us "Cheaters" have been trying to tell folks all along.

 

Yup, we’ve had to choose between legal and safe for years, and we were berated for choosing safe.

 

We dont know anything. We are cheaters and need to trip plan.

Just wait till the first one has their dispatch request them to split their time. But wants thier 10 to play video games! Its coming.

I'm not old enough to be a old timer, but old enough to know better.

 

Lots of people make it sound like drivers did not cheat on paper logs. The trucking companies would say keep running if it's legal or you get fired. I remember the trucking saying if they ever had go give up their satellite tracking info they would take the system out of their truck. Because they knew exactly what everyone was doing. They got mad when drivers had log fuel stops the same day the fueled. Then we had be within 15 minutes of the time we fueled.

 

There are cheaters and cheaters. As far as I am concerned, the only law to be enforced is the law of not driving while tired. For that there are no HOS needed. Everyone knows when he needs to pull over to a rest area and rest. So, in a way, the biggest cheaters are those that don't cheat on HOS by a variety of ways but those who are feeling like falling asleep while driving. The HOS before this latest change were inducing for driving while tired. Now, a driver, at the very least, can decide to do the power nap at any time or wait out a traffic rush hour in places like LA and Chicago, without burning their 11s or 70s.

 

Maybe there are going to be situations in which dispatchers are going to use split breaks to their advantage but generally, for them to do so, is still illegal. And they know it very well.
It is a driver's sovereign decision how he logs his detention...at some places it is possible to actually sleep while being loaded or unloaded but at some it is not at all despite long hours at a dock.
Trip planning is still needed for a tight schedule. From my experience, ramming 1000 miles a day on frequent basis is utterly stupid. A human body won't take it well, I don't care if you are lean or fat, from Siberia or Bangladesh.

 

Sometimes you have to learn by doing. After needing to delay slightly to get a two-hour break to reach my destination without a 14-hour violation yesterday, I finally saw that I've been wrong about future events not making past illegal driving legal.

Using a split break you can "violate" the 11-hour and 14-hour rules then have the violations disappear once you complete the second break. I'd hate to have to explain this to a DOT officer who doesn't understand split logging very well, but now after seeing how it works, I'd at least have a shot.

It looks to me like you can legally drive 22 hours in just 31 hours by putting two 11-hour driving shifts (each containing a 30-minute break in the middle) separated by an 8-hour sleeper break. Just put a 2-hour break at each end of the 31 hours.

I'd say that's legal. Since you drove over 20 hours total with just 8 hours off, so you definitely violated both the 11-hour and 14-hour rules, yet everything became legal once you got that second 2-hour break completed. I stand corrected.

------ EDIT ADDED ------ I was going to delete this because now I'm unsure about it again and suspect I was probably right before. The reason is after posting the above, our safety guy called me saying I violated the 14-hour rule yesterday morning. I probably did.

 

To confirm this I phoned the FMCSA yesterday. A safety investigator there told me that yes, the 14-hour clock does pause with the first 2-hour break after a break of 10+ hours that contains 8 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth.

To explain why, he pointed out that the new sleeper berth language removed "(but less than 10)" in the definitions of the two rest periods. The snippet below is from Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (eCFR)

The FMCSA also has an educational page where you can enter scenarios to see if they're legal or not. I haven't played with it yet but plan to soon. It's at ELD - Educational Tool for Hours of Service

Here's the snippet:

"(ii) Sleeper berth. A driver may accumulate the equivalent of at least 10 consecutive hours off-duty by taking not more than two periods of either sleeper berth time or a combination of off-duty time and sleeper berth time if:

(A) Neither rest period is shorter than 2 consecutive hours;

(B) One rest period is at least 7 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth;

(C) The total of the two periods is at least 10 hours; and

(D) Driving time in the period immediately before and after each rest period, when added together:

(1) Does not exceed 11 hours under §395.3(a)(3); and

(2) Does not violate the 14-hour duty-period limit under §395.3(a)(2)."

 

So if you’re home for a couple of days you have to make a false log entry showing SB time at the end of your time off in order to use split sleeper to pause your 14 on your first day back out?

 

No. 10 hours or more off Duty resets any previous split break configuration and you're not obligated to conclude whatever first split break period ocuured. You start afresh on 11 and 14. You might as well see 10 hours off as a substitute for 7 - 10 hours on the sleeper too.
That's how it works with Keep Truckin and that's the only sensible way