Paperwork time. To be or not to be perfectly legal.

I was never asked about it in my first audit. I never log any office time as line 4. I do it at a leisurely pace whenever I get around to it. If questioned, say you have your wife or whoever do the booking of loads. They didn't ask to see load confirmations. When he checked hos he asked for 1 month, I had previous 6 with me, and also print out of all my fuel stops. He was satisfied with that.

 

No the authority related paper work is not to be logged. It is a clerical job, nothing to do with driving.

 

Do you want to sight the reg. for that.

If I start up a lawn mowing business everything has to be logged; paperwork and lawn mowing. Yet you say I don't have to log paperwork for a trucking business.

 

What?

You want regs?

Wait a Year, I am headed to Washington tonight to meet with Trump in the morning so the FMCSA gets an order to create them so I can point to them for you

You are mistaken, this is outside the area of driving activities, it is not the same as filling out a BOL, or your paper work to turn into the company to be paid.

This is back office activities.

I don't see office people logging their work at a trucking company.

I don't, my manager doesn't. Even when I'm on the road, I would took my laptop and go somewhere to do the work, it didn't matter if I was off duty, sleeper or sitting in the shop lounge waiting for the PM to be finished.

If it has to do with no driving related activities, then it isn't logged.

Do you log writing a check?

God I would hate to work for you cutting lawns, logging cutting someone's lawn, too funny.

 

From http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp=1&ty=HTML&h=L&mc=true&=PART&n=pt49.5.395

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:

(1) All time at a plant, terminal, facility, or other property of a motor carrier or shipper, or on any public property, waiting to be dispatched, unless the driver has been relieved from duty by the motor carrier;
(2) All time inspecting, servicing, or conditioning any commercial motor vehicle at any time;
(3) All driving time as defined in the term driving time;
(4) All time in or on a commercial motor vehicle, other than:
(i) Time spent resting in or on a parked vehicle, except as otherwise provided in §397.5 of this subchapter;
(ii) Time spent resting in a sleeper berth; or
(iii) Up to 2 hours riding in the passenger seat of a property-carrying vehicle moving on the highway immediately before or after a period of at least 8 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth;
(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;
(6) All time repairing, obtaining assistance, or remaining in attendance upon a disabled commercial motor vehicle;
(7) All time spent providing a breath sample or urine specimen, including travel time to and from the collection site, to comply with the random, reasonable suspicion, post-crash, or follow-up testing required by part 382 of this subchapter when directed by a motor carrier;
(8) Performing any other work in the capacity, employ, or service of, a motor carrier; and
(9) Performing any compensated work for a person who is not a motor carrier.

I bolded the relevant section. So yes, by law you do have to log it as on-duty.
Now I'm not getting into if you should or nor, or if an audit will ever care. But it's fairly straight forward it is required.

 

I book all my loads during other on duty or driving time. I don't surf load boards..just make calls hands free and then they email load confirmations which I reply to or print whatever at end of day. Takes only a few minutes.

There is also a provision somewhere that says a driver communicating with dispatch is not considered line 4. One could argue your load broker is your dispatcher.

 

So i need to make my manager log his time as if he is a driver?

Wow, here is the thing, it doesn't matter.

The FMCSA won't ask.

The officer who is doing a level 1 inspection has no right to ask. This is way beyond the scope of his authority.

SO it is a moot point.

The regulations assumes that the driver is an employee, and if that isn't the case, everyone who works for or has anything to do with a carrier would have to log their time as a driver with the log sheets, and that doesn't happen. This would include brokers, people working on the truck and so on. That would also mean you would log your tax work, any other management work and so on.