HOS new rules

When you take the first break (short break) the computer doesn’t know you’re splitting. Once you take the long break in the sleeper to fulfill the split sleeper requirements then the computer knows what you’re doing.

 

Well I dared today.
Yesterday, I spent 2 full hours in the sleeper berth while at the shipper. Then I drove through the night with 1 hour sleeper break.
After they unloaded me this morning I had only 15 minutes left on my 14 hour clock and about 2 hours on 11 clock.
I dared and went for a pick up located 45 minutes away. After they finished loading me Keep Truckin was showing that I was in violation but according to the new rules the previous day 2 hour sleeper extended my 14 clock by 2 hours. So I assumed to have 40 minutes left on my extended shift and proceeded to a truck stop located 25 miles away.
So now I am here, logged in the sleeper, hoping to see the current violation shown so mercilessly by Keep Truckin to disappear in about 8 hours.

 

If this works, then 14 hour clock has become pretty much a lame safety measure.
As far as I am concerned, it has never been a safety measure but a pain in the ###.

 

The 14 hour rule was put in simply to appease and stop lawsuits from Public Citizen and other advocacy groups.

 

Day 1.
2 uninterrupted hours in the sleeper at the shipper:


Day 2.
Staying in the sleeper for 8 hours. Hoping that the violation (in red) will be nullified when 8 hours is satisfied.




FYI
The precise time of yesterday's start was 6:31:00 pm
The precise length of sleeper break at the shipper was 2 hours and 38 seconds.
The precise time of today's sleeper break start:10:29:43 am.

 

After 7 hours of the sleeper berth, the 14 hour violation disappeared.


2/7 combination shifted the 14 hour clock to start counting down from the end of yesterday's 2 hour sleeper berth break.

 

Also 2 and 7 hours of sleeper berth combination recaptured 1 hour 49 minutes on my shift clock and 1 hour 47 minutes on my on duty driving clock.



At first glance, I was a little surprised to see that - expecting to have to wait full 8 hours - but after a few moments of consideration , I understood that it meets the FMCSA definition of the new split sleeper rule where neither of the two qualifying break count towards 14 hour

 

1 hour and 47 minutes won't get me anywhere.
I'll wait till full 8 hours and at that point I'll go Off Duty to accumulate full 10 hour break.

Ok there we go...




I have to admit that I don't quite feel it yet.
It got somewhat complex and counterintuitive.
Confusing. Especially the part where 2/7 combination nullified the violation...and not 2/8 combination.

Many, many examples will have to be studied by drivers as well as law enforcement to get a good grasp of these changes. Seriously. At this point, only a person who is good at formal logic and reading comprehension - takes a skill to understand the FMCSA semantics - could claim to be comfortable in understanding it all without a pause.
The changes are enormous in how someone could plan their trips and utilize time. Question is...Has FMCSA intended it to be that drastic a change?


Well.. At least, I am glad to know that I did not violate HOS rules in the example above.
Also, in future, I will not hesitate to take 2 or more hour off Duty break while en route without worrying about not covering enough distance before the end of the shift.

Ughh... I am tired of this thread.

 

So am I...haven't even looked at it since around level 5.

The reason I returned is to give what I hope to be my final report on what I consider to be the only really important rule change that occurred on 9/29: the one that extends the 14.

A key fact that I already mentioned somewhere else in this thread is that with very little extra effort, the rule allows a driver to extend his/her 14 by the amount of the first 2+ break that occurs during the work shift regardless of whether their previous 7+ break exceeded 10 hours or not. In other words, while yes, the extension of the 14 is written into the rules as only applying to a split sleeper berth scenario, there is nothing to prevent drivers from converting one minute of their off-duty or sleeper time to on-duty time instead, in order to convert a 10+ break into a split sleeper berth setup.

But after experimenting with my Peoplenet, I discovered that sometimes the ELD doesn't let you do that without introducing a new problem of excessive amounts of on-duty time suddenly appearing.

Just changing the duty status of an entry without changing its starting time doesn't affect any other entries, which solves that problem. So one suggested workaround is if you happen to stop more than 2 hours before you to go to bed, right before you go to bed change from sleeper berth to off-duty (or vice versa), then one minute later go back to where it was. I plan to get into the habit of doing this, because it creates a one-minute section of your 10+ break that can easily be manually changed to on-duty if an opportunity presents itself during your next work shift to extend your 14, without screwing up any of the other entries.