Hos personal conveyance "PC" time

I have always wondered how this works on a loaded straight truck that can not drop the trailer and bobtail.....but can meet all the other requirements.

 

If you are "loaded" then you are laden.

Section §395.2, the following conditions of personal conveyance can be extrapolated.

• The vehicle must be unladen.
• Movement is of a “short” distance solely for personal use.
• The driver is relieved from work and all responsibility for performing work.
• The driver is relieved of all duty and responsibility for the care and custody of the vehicle, its accessories, and any cargo or passengers it may be carrying.
• The driver must be at liberty to pursue activities of his/her own choosing.
• No work should be done until the driver is ready to return to duty

 

So because I can't unload I can't drive to a restaurant!?

It has not been a issue with me...just curious.

 

Cannot use pc

 

Correct. Unfortunately (at this time) if you had a box and it had anything it it you could not use PC to drive to the restaurant or motel, etc. Rules says "unladen" but they are going to be adding clarity to this PC thing - guarantee it.

I had a driver lay over in my parking lot last week. He was running from WA state, down I-5, to the Bay Area on PC the whole way. Flatbed trailer attached, unloaded of course. Lots of scales to pass along the way. He happened to have a load to pick up in 2 days from that day in the Bay Area. But he also had a sister there. He was asked already at two scales before he got to my shop what was up with the PC mode and he said he was going to visit the sister. No violations. Next time he needed to log on-duty was from the sister's house to the load pickup location in two days. Everything else was PC.

As stated at the top, I say again - the PC (or "Off-Duty Driving" if you are running AOBRD) is one of the grayest areas of the guidance right now. I guarantee it will receive more clarity shortly after December 17th...

 

So because he was making a stop to visit relatives it wasn't concidered advancing towards his next load?

Or did the scales that asked not know about the pick up?

 

@RedRover

 

If he was dispatched to the load, but used PC to "move" to save hours, then the driver was wrong... he used the PC to advance to the load, which you cannot do.

 

He told them the truth and used the PC provision as it is currently written.

1) It was very obvious that he was unladen because he was a flatbed. (and yes, he had the trailer connected and they let him by, no prob in Oregon and Washington.) (as I have said in many other threads, there is a gray area bomb here that the FMCSA is going to need to put into black and white soon. The word "unladen" in the current guidance is going to blow up in their face until they say definitively (trailer or no trailer.")

2) He was not under dispatch yet. He was on "his own personal time." (he just happened to know that there was a "strong likelihood" that he could pick up a load out of the Bay Area in a few days, but that is not a crime.)

3) He is an owner-operator but he drives for a mid-size carrier that you all know, but yet he was not doing any work to his truck either. For instance if he drove to get a set of steer tires put on, that distance would NOT qualify as PC.

4) He had a "real" destination that he was going to. His sister does live in the Bay Area.

5) He is not required to say anything about his next load because he had technically not accepted that load yet.

6) He had an Omnitracs ELD/AOBRD and his company has set PC to "unlimited" for the owner-ops. (Yes, there is a setting for distance.)

 

Definitely a massive gray hole that needs defined.