Is a post trip inspection officially required by D.O.T.?

I hope you don't think you can do all that off duty. That's what it sounds like to me you are saying....

On-duty time means all time from the time a driver begins to work or is required to be in readiness to work until the time the driver is relieved from work and all responsibility for performing work. On-duty time shall include:
(2) All time inspecting, servicing, or conditioning any commercial motor vehicle at any time;
(5) All time loading or unloading a commercial motor vehicle, supervising, or assisting in the loading or unloading, attending a commercial motor vehicle being loaded or unloaded, remaining in readiness to operate the commercial motor vehicle, or in giving or receiving receipts for shipments loaded or unloaded;

 

All what, your required to show anytime for inspecting, as far as loading it takes 6 minutes to load a set of phuematics, unloading by a customer is by my customers, So I show 5 minutes each for loading nd unloading, fueling take 6 to 7 minutes I show 15 because I do a walk around, tankers arent like vans I dont crawl under then because of how they are shaped. . 405 stops maybe I shift the elog to onduty, when the truck moves it shifts back to driving by itself.
If theres a problem its up to DOT. So far it was checked by CHP and they had no problem.

 

You should only do it at least a five minute pre-trip and a 15-minute post-trip by DOT regulations you only you have to show 15 minutes on one of the other makes no sense to do a 15-minute post-trip in a 15-minute pre-trip that is just ridiculous wasting your time and your money and you're not getting the miles I usually check my tires and lights and make sure no one has sabotaged my truck during the night so what I've been told at the end of your day is all you need to do is 15 minutes to make sure that your truck is in good shape for the next day companies put out their own policies they don't give a #### about your money are your bills are supporting your family your company gives you book maybe you should read it and get your own information for yourself the law is the law and they put it in the dot books people need to read the laws and not listen to the companies because their policies are backwards companies don't give a #### they're not going to stand behind you in court just saying

 

Exactly agree 100%

 

I also agree with the main meaning but not the wording. The words should be implied and regulatory. As is the case with several threads in here about logging. §396.13 makes it clear a driver SHALL be satisfied their vehicle is safe before they put it on the road. In fact if a driver does put a truck on the road and later a major mechanical breakdown happens the driver (might) get cited. There is NO regulatory language in §396 that states in clear language that a driver SHALL do a pretrip/posttrip. It simply is NOT THERE. However §396.13 makes it clear said driver had better know their truck is safe. Outside of some kind of psychic ability I know of no way to do this especially before going on duty without taking a look.

In the end it comes down to how a driver want's to conduct their job as a driver. If you don't want to inspect and just pencil whip inspection documents I guess you have a right to do it. During my driving career I had rather known as much as I could determined by a visual inspection the condition of my equipment. I never needed a rule or law implied or not to do it.

 

I always examine the vehicle or vehicles when I walk up to it.IF it's hurting somewhere or perhaps the 5th wheel handle is pulled or something stupid, I can fix it easily before being satisfied that nothing bad will happen and I;ll be on my way.

Remember that if I am with a vehicle long enough I get to know it better than I know my spouse in some cases. You won't believe the smallest of differences from normal that the gauges will tell me something is probably the matter and should be followed up on. Esepcially if I had been sick a few days an another driver had taken it for a while. (I hate that, it usually comes back with really bad problem somewhere that requires shop work.)

Which is why I have a certain spots around the USA where I can park it a while safely and at a great enough distance from any airport, any city, any bus station and so on. That way the expense of having to send a driver plus hundreds of dollars in taxi fees in the old days makes any payroll a negative prospect for anyone sent to collect the rig.

I remember a situation where a driver was supplied wtih 650 dollars cash plus tickets in three different forms of transport (Plane, bus and train) to finally get to pick up my rig for 4 days, When I got it back and the pretrip was compeled, the U joints were bad, one set of brakes were cooked and the 4 batteries were drained along with a busted alternator belt.

It took another 3000 dollars in dealership work (This was a international shop for a volvo of all things) to make it road worthy and ready to take on more steel loads.

All of that was billed to the previous driver as preventable. I can only imagine he is still paying on that bill to this day.

 

Well your DVIR is required. And that's done on post trip. So...............

 

You got cats. They can find lots of things on an inspection.

 

The driver has to be able to work with the contraption the government regulated into being and most bs nowadays is electronic which can leave you stranded for a code, that's why they need self driving trucks, somebody has to correct it always.

 

Agreed, the report is required. However even in section 11 there is no language clearly mandating a physical looking at the truck. Hey i'm with you on the intent. The FMCSA have implied by this language there should be a physical look. This is a very deep gray area much like the potty break thread. Implied only! The regulatory language MANDATING the physical inspection is just not there.