notice before shift

Nope.

Although the op is sparse on details I suspect that it was his decision to stay up all day, not the company's. He didn't say anything about "remain ready to work at a moments notice." He said he had three hours notice. He said he was told at 7 AM that he was on-call. He was called at 4 PM to leave at 7 PM. If it were me I would have rested between 7 AM to 4 PM and again between 4 PM to 7 PM if necessary.

I worked many years "on-call" in the oil patch and if a driver did what the OP did they wouldn't be a driver for long. When I did it we didn't even have logs or hours of service so there was no regulatory protection... if you didn't rest you were a hazard, fired or dead.

 

Well we agree to disagree. I refused when faced with that decision and just as you said about the OP, I did not last long at the company.

I (wrongly) assumed that when I was put on call for my normal shift, if I was not called in at some point during that shift, then I would get dispatched my for my next normal shift. Not for just a few hours later. But I will be the first to admit, that is not how trucking works. If you have hours, you go when they say, because you have hours. Tired? so what, you have hours, the computer says so.

 

Not too dissimilar to running reefer. I know the appointment to load said 3 PM, but it almost never works out that way. So... I went to sleep.

And to borrow from @TripleSix...

"But not4hire, what if they say to monitor your CB for when a door is available?"

"Well, Mr. Loader, I don't have a CB, but here's my phone number. Call me when the door is open." ZZZZzzzzz...
Yes, I had a CB. Yes, it worked just fine. Yes, I turned it off and went to bed.

 

The STAA, 49 USC Sec. 31105 protects a driver from retaliation for refusing to operate a cmv in violation of any commercial vehicle safety law or regulation. 49 CFR 392.3 prohibits operating a commercial vehicle where driving would be unsafe or likely to become unsafe due to illness, fatigue or some other cause. If you are so fatigued or likely to become so fatigued that driving will become unsafe during your run, due to being kept in an on call or delayed status, inform the employer that you refuse to violate 49 CFR 392.3 and that driving will become unsafe due to the delay. You will be up x hours as you near completion of your shift. Google Stauffer v. Wal-Mart Stores or Johnson v. Roadway and you will see how this law works.

Paul Taylor
Truckers Justice Center
www.truckersjusticecenter.com

 

The regulations protect you... It is illegal for your to operate a CMV while ill or fatigued.... Tell them you had been waiting all day for a load and have been Awake tell them you cannot and will not violate FMCSA regulation s or put the motoring public at risk and to NOT ask you to do so again as they will then be violating the coercion regulation of asking you to operate a CMV illegally and in an unsafe manner.

 

On call means resting constantly until that phone rings. It's the same as resting and waiting inside your sleeper waiting for the load to finish loading and you have thousand miles to go by morning.

On call and waiting at a moment's notice to go work is the worst of all situations in my humble opinion.

Find another company that does not practice this draconian practice.

 

I have a problem with that also, but the FMCSA has an interpretative ruling which seems to say, on call having to be available for a call is off duty:

Question 5: Do telephone calls to or from the motor carrier that momentarily interrupt a driver’s rest period constitute a change of the driver’s duty status?​

Guidance: Telephone calls of this type do not prevent the driver from obtaining adequate rest. Therefore, the FHWA does not consider these brief telephone calls to be a break in the driver’s off duty status.​

​

 

Here is another regulatory guidance from FMCSA:

Question 6: If a driver is required by a motor carrier to carry a pager/beeper to receive notification to contact the motor carrier for a duty assignment, how should this time be recorded?

Guidance: The time is to be recorded as off-duty.