Just some of the stupid things I see

I did not put him back in the sleeper for 8 MORE hours! How ridiculous.

I merely told him to go back in the sleeper and complete his original 8. Not go after 7. The hour we spent doing a Level 1 was On-duty time, not sleeper. Sleeper time starts when the driver's carcass gets in the sleeper.

 

I read this that he was not getting in the sleeper and would need to be for required break.

Smoking with hazmat you could lock him up as far as I care.

 

Had one driver in a double bottom try to explain to me that it was OK for him to smoke in the cab of the truck because the flammable placards were on the back pup only and he was more than 25 feet away from it.

Another driver in a propane tanker with leaking valves thought it was OK to smoke too. I about shoved that cigarette down his throat.

 

How about personal conveyance?

 

Do you sleep for 8hrs before you drive home after working your shift? Why is it that if someone works a double shift at a factory or hospital it's "OK" to drive home but if a truck driver goes an hour over the world ends?
My mom stopped telling me what time I had to go to bed when I was like 12, guess when I climb into my truck I'm no longer smart enough to know when I'm tired.

My uncle had a genius with a badge throw a road flare under the valves of the gasoline tanker he was pulling years ago when there was a traffic accident. So he got out of the truck and threw the flare in the ditch and the cop got pissed. Lack of common sense isn't limited to truck drivers.

 

The guy is lucky scalemaster didn't put him back on duty and make him start the whole break over for getting out to argue. He could have.

 

What's even more ridiculous is that the regulations do not REQUIRE that a driver SLEEP at all! A driver just needs to spend 8 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth, or 10 consecutive hours off duty. HOS is a useless waste, IMO. Why can't we just all be responsible for our own work / rest cycles, and have the FMCSA be responsible for cracking down hard on those drivers that aren't responsible, and even harder on carriers that punish drivers for refusing to drive when they're fatigued?

 

All these laws are just to give the illusion of safety and make the nervous people feel safe. When I'm tired I park the truck, when I'm not I'm working! pardon me officer if I don't give a **** what your rule book says. The idiots in DC don't know when I'm tired no more than the scalemaster. Just keep your paperwork in order to make the guy with the badge feel good.

 

The personal conveyance exception comes from the interpretations on 395.8.

The only two situations addressed by FMCSA in this interpretation are:
1) terminal/home - home/terminal commuting
2) travel to "restaurants in the vicinity" of enroute lodgings

We get lots of drivers claiming the personal conveyance exception that are operating in a manner that is not even remotely similar to Question 26.

 

No, he could not have.

He violated the 8 hours in the sleeper for the split berth, but could only have been held to complete a standard 10.

Seems scalemaster, got to meet a real brainy one.