Logging...an honest question.

What difference does it make if you are hooked to the trailer when they load it or not?

 

I believe the Hummingbird is making a joke.


I do not take logging nearly as serious as a lot of you do. I have met many of those folks in Congress and am not too overly impressed with their cognitive skills.

If you are required to keep a log that shows that you are violating the law, that would make me think that they have gotten around the 5th amendment somehow. I took an oath when I was was sworn into the Air Force that I would support and defend the Constitution of the United States. I have never had anyone tell me that that oath no longer applies. Therefore, do not think of me as a trucker who tells you to run illegally if you wish, look at me more as a hero. Build a statue to me and make sure if it is nude, that you use a lot of marble below the belt.

 

if you log that you unhooked then you are no longer responsible for the trailer you are no longer on duty, unless you are bobtailing to get a loaded trailer then you are on duty driving. The company may supply a letter saying that they wave your responsibility for the loaded trailer as well so that you can log off duty while attached to a loaded trailer.

 

If drivers had to log all the time spent waiting for shippers and receivers to load/unload as 'on duty', the nation would come to a stand-still literally. I think the point of the bulk of this thread is to make the point, "don't sweat the particulars" if you're doing something wrong or in-sufficient on eLogs, your safety dept will let you know eventually. We're not talking about felonies here with logging as long as key changes are noted. Nobody has more riding on sufficient and 'proper' logging then the carrier. If they are ok with it, you should be ok with it, but don't hobble yourself needlessly logging more then you need to (unless you're trying to make a point or just want to have smaller pay checks as a mileage driver).

And yes, fuel stops should always be on-duty at least 5 minutes, I log time waiting in a fuel line as off-duty knowing this time may well be in excess of 20 minutes at some places/times. And most company's want a pre-trip 'flagged', and a post trip a minimum of 8 minutes ... some vice versa

 

I think the confusion arises from the conflicting regs in 49 CFR. One section titled "Definitions" (I think it's 305 but don't hold me to that) defines any time waiting to load or unload as "on duty" and then in (I think 395 - HOS or later on in 305) defines time in the sleeper berth not performing company related work as "Sleeper Berth". The definitions kinda contradict each other and they clarified saying if you are in the sleeper and not doing any company work at a dock waiting to get loaded or unloaded you can log it legally as Sleeper Berth as long as you are just doing something personal, not trip planning, paperwork etc. It was confusing for a while though.

I'm not going to discuss my fits with E-Logs and things I've done. It's not a rant thread. LOL.

 

It depends on the customer and the situation for the week. I have a couple of customers that require me to be in the drivers seat while unloading, one takes 90 minutes to unload. I log it on line 4. The others, it depends on how long I'm at the customer and how the week is going. When I arrive at a customer, I don't touch my log book until I'm done loading and ready to call in my load info to dispatch. This was I can account for my time properly. Which is 15 to 30 minutes of line 4 when I arrive, sleeper or Off-Duty, then 15 minutes of line 4 just prior to departing. Now, constantly we are doing bean loads, which take 90 minutes to load. Sometimes I log the whole 2 hrs at the customer on line 4, but other times I split it up. It depends on how busy we are during the week and if I have to work the weekend and don't want to run out of hours.

 

until dot starts monitoring this activity it is not illegal to put your self off duty... line one or two... if you are actually out of your truck doing some on duty work ... you are just going to decide how much sleep you want to lose ... that's your sacrifice ... making good choices in the job career will keep you out of the justice system ... unlike our current Walmart driver who recently pleaded not guilty to Tracy Morgans incident and needed to post a 50,000 bail