Made to use PC to leave shippers/receivers to benefit the company

If I'm in a day cab with a trailer, loaded or not, and I go get food, store or restaurant...PC. Sleeper truck, no different.

 

Are you driving those 2-3 hours without getting paid because you're on PC? I couldn't fathom agreeing to a scenario like that.

 

I get paid a percentage of what the company makes on the load so pretty much no

 

Oh yeah I did that last weekend moving tanks around just so they would be ready to go first thing Monday morning

 

Our hours aren't very different. I put 23 hours on the clock yesterday because of a tornado that wiped out power on one of our prisons. The difference I see is I'm paid by the hour, and you're paid by the load/percentage.

I'm trying to understand why you'd be willing to work that many extra hours without compensation.

The load you're describing would've paid the same whether they accepted your trailer on the first attempt, or your second. You didn't make any extra money by working 22 hours. I'm missing something.

 

Then you're not on the driveline, you're on yard move. Totally different. That only takes out of the 14 bucket, not the 11 bucket.

 

Thank you. And I would like to notice in the regulations you posted NOWHERE does it say you MUST be out of drive time to use PC. Or that you can't use PC leaving a receiver if you still have drivetime available. I know that YOU know this, but I'm trying to point it out to one of our hard headed members.

 

My opinion is that because any use of PC is going to be scrutinized by DOT cop during any inspection it’s not great to use it for driving that is necessary to perform your work. Going to a place to take your ten is necessary work on any normal day. Therefore I would only use PC to go to a safe haven if I’m out of hours. I try and plan my trip so I never have to but as we all know you will get held at customer from time to time.

Using PC to go to a safe haven while you have hours remaining is risky because it certainly does extend your 70 and will shorten your 10. I would not be surprised when DOT has a problem with that and you get a surprise 34 hour OOS. It’s all risk and reward when it comes to PC, in my opinion. A surprise 34 hour OOS is too big a gamble for me. It’d have to be a big upside personally for me, not any company, for me to do that.

edit: DOT is very good at scrutinizing logs. They do it many times everyday. As drivers we don’t scrutinize our ELD logs hardly ever because it’s all done electronically for us. They will spot stuff pretty much instantly.

 

I work for a 5 truck outfit that just had 2 guys quit so dispatch wanted the load delivered the same day to look good for the customer in the hope that they'll give us better rates.

 

I drove for a bus operator that was just a little bigger, and they got audited by the DOT. It got very ugly, very fast.