HOS Violation Fine

Lol

 

You know there's always the one guy that say you should have trip planned better or you should have planned ahead or tried to stop sooner, etc etc. Enjoy your ticket.

I say, live and learn and don't stress. Cross that bridge when you get there.

 

When I was active, I believe I done a good job of trip planning. Generally, I got to where I needed to be and had enough "hours" to accomplish my job. The thing is though a driver can't control how long they get stuck on a dock or in a bad traffic situation. The FMCSA changed its guidance on this issue some time ago. They did this primarily because the 14-hour clock was placing a lot of drivers in bad situations. the FMCSA is NEVER going to allow "exceptions" to the HOS rules. That is a guarantee for groups like CRASH to run to the nearest court and file a lawsuit. What they did, however, was put in a "backdoor" so a driver can escape that bad situation. PC is there for 2 reasons. To allow a driver to "move about" during downtime, and to allow this escape I spoke of. There are at least 10 threads here on PC where this is discussed.

 

It almost never generates a fine. Everyone who speeds isn't fined.

 

Unless it’s for your bail!!

 

Logically it's situational dependent.

Yes, the new PC provision is for finding a place to park if you run out of hours, but it's more for when a shipper/receiver holds you up. If they allow it for regular driving then there will be a ton of drivers purposely abusing it, knowingly passing available parking when they have 5 or 10 mins left to PC to the next place 30-40 miles away and the 11 hour rule becomes pointless.

Exceeding drive time due to stuff like weather or an accident has always been allowed, but even that can only be once in a while or they can think abuse. Plus, DOT can easily look up if an accident or bad weather actually happened to verify the reason. Small amounts of exceeding will often be ignored by DOT. A few mins over could be time spent getting parked in a truck stop, especially with the new max 5mph standard. Would need a real picky officer to cite for that.

DOT isn't the only thing to worry about though.
Your company will likely see it before DOT will. Good chance their safety department will call you if it's excessive which can eventually lead to disciplinary action. Especially if you work for a mega. As for a DOT inspection, you only have worry about the next 7 days.

The real risk is other motorists. If you purposely exceed drive time to PC someplace to park and are involved in an accident with a car, even if it's undeniably their fault, their lawyer will ask why you didn't park before running out of time. They claim "you shouldn't have been there" and use it against you in court. It's a very powerful weapon for their case against you.

 

I don't think DOT likes P C , however the head of FMCSA at the time ok ed. A driver I know was issue ed a ticket at a Colorado scale while on P C . He was going to Walmart, put something truck related in the remarks, that was enough for DOT to say he was on duty.

 

It all depends on the officer and your attitude.

 

First of all, I would give some serious thought before I ran through an operating scale while PCing to Walmart. While perfectly legal there is no use in tossing a rock in that hornet's nest. I am ignorant on these e-log systems, however, from your comment I'm wondering if maybe that driver had not properly set the system for going PC? The FMCSA is OK with PC, most if not all of the states are part of the CVSA and PC is taught to the DOT officers trained by the CVSA. However, a 2nd handed comment about a ticket in a scale house is not enough information to make any form of an intelligent comment!

 

And this is a Universal Constant!