How's Everyone Doing in LTL Right Now?

Ok I think I answered my question, kind of.

It's not the FMCSA but it's dot-gov

Federal Register :: Request Access

395.1(o)

 

Here's an FMCSA link with basically the same information (at the bottom): https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/hours-service/summary-hours-service-regulations

Weirdly enough, it seems to contradict the way I always understood it and the way that I was allowed to use it multiple times while working for FedEx Freight. I was always told as long as you start and end your day at the same location for the previous seven days and you haven’t used it in the previous seven days, you were fine. I never heard about being required to be operating within a 150 air mile radius in order to use it.

I wonder if that’s a recent change, or if FedEx has just been incorrectly allowing linehaul drivers to use it this whole time?

 

That is FMCSA. All government regulations are listed in the Federal Registrer. Title 49 covers all transportation related topics. Title 4 is Government Accountability. Title 50 is Wildlife and Fisheries, etc.

 

The regulation is more clear than the summary. The 'short haul driver' is allowed to use the 2 hour 'adverse driving conditions' exemption to return to his barn, and in general 'adverse conditions' is more widely defined. As long as the run can be completed with ease under 'normal conditions' and the delay is caused by non predictable issues - tire blows, accident shuts down the road, a forecast for 40 and rainy turns into an ice storm mid run, etc - the exception can be used. For non short haul drivers, that 2 hours can only be used to get to the NEXT safe and legal parking location.

In my very limited line haul experience, the stories seem to indicate companies will use the 16 hour exception to hold a driver because they're waiting on a due in bill. The due in driver would qualify to use the exception, but the driver waiting on him generally wouldn't. At least on hub turns - meet and turns is a grayer area.

 

I don't think it's technically legal. Accepted practice? You betcha, don't ya know.

 

It's like logging your pretrips, fueling, and paperwork as off duty. Every driver has done it. Most drivers do it regularly.

The second an accident lawsuit goes into discovery you're buried then and there.

 

I did look at the actual text of the rule in the federal register, and I’m still surprised how often FedEx has their drivers use it. Even under the adverse conditions rule, they were wary to allow drivers to use it for weather/traffic delays. Only a handful of the times I used it was due to my own mechanical breakdown, which would be allowed under adverse conditions. The rest was due to late freight or my meet driver breaking down.

 

That rule gets extremely subjective really fast when you consider what qualifies for non predictable weather issues. When I ran Montana, the DOT there would hammer all of us on the two hour adverse driving exemption. I haven't been pulled for it yet, but other drivers were cited because the blizzard they found themselves in was forcasted and they should have known better than to hang around as long as they did when Homestake Pass was shut down temporarly.

We had this other two hour extension we could use one time every seven days (we called it the big day extension) and I rarely saw it at Reddaway but that #### got old really fast at Holland. Our dispatchers would send us out with the intend of keeping us out for 16 hours to consolidate runs to one driver (and that was usually me). At one point I was so pissed about it that I started using my 2 hour backup parachute unannounced by deliberately staying on the clock 14 hours and 1-3 extra minutes so they couldnt pull that crap on me for another week. It's one thing to have a genuine breakdown and then have some extra time to make it back to the barn, it is another for dispatch to game the system by using the extension as a way to do more work with less drivers.

Hopefully everone else didn't have similar experiences.

 

Well played, my friend!