HOS rules and working in yard.

A yard jockey operating on private property, I don't think falls under "involved in interstate commerce" ... Now if that yard dog drives across a public roadway to a warehouse on the other side, there would be an issue there, but I don't think that was part of the original question.

 

I work for a large ltl company and they require yard mules to be logged as driving.

 

As long as you are not on a public roadway and are on private roads or property you can show on duty not driving. But once you go onto public roads it must be logged driving.
I used to work in the refineries for a large company running a roll off truck and always logged only on duty.
Also worked in the oilfields and unless we had to leave the lease it was also all on duty not driving and also for a very big company. Dot never questioned anything about it on our audits.
This was in CA of all places.

 

OK, then grow a set and tell them you aren't going to do it. There ARE other jobs out there.

 

I work at Con-Way, and hostling is logged as driving per company policy. By doing so, they limit hostling to 12 hour days. I can't imagine they'd do that if they didn't have to.

 

Always thought yard hostling was a time card situation....straight hourly employee. Why would a person working off a time card even consider using a log book, unless, along with the on property yard work they drove an extra shift or something along those lines for delivery or p/u of product/trailers. If that is the case, and the company has them on a 60 hour log...then all hours devoted to yard work would be Line 4 (on duty not driving) and once the 60 hour 7 days is reached, they are done for 34 or more hours to reset the clock.

 

During my very brief time yard hostling/driving for a very small fleet, all time NOT spent on the road was logged as off duty. So I and my fellow driver could spend ten to twelve hours hooking and dropping trailers, then grab a load and run an overnight delivery. Sound safe to you? It ain't. But that's how the boss ran things.

I lasted a week.

 

There is no exception for running a yard truck because a yard truck doesnt meet.... THE FIRST QUALIFICATION FOR LOGGING REQUIREMENTS. Ie: Interstate Commerce.

There can be many reasons a company would set its own rules for logging. Most of them as a CYA from a civil lawsuit. Imagine the yard jockeys been moving trailers for 22 hours. He hits someone walking across the yard or maybe just falls off himself and gets hurt. No matter what the regs say even the worst lawyer in America is gonna have a field day in a courtroom.