personal conveyance thread

I get enough of it at work. All I hear is:

what do you think the intent of that is?

umm, for real, it's written out?

Yeah, but what is the intent?

 

If you are going to start a thread at least contribute.

It's in black and white and not hard to understand if one doesn't try to read between the lines.

From what I read in DB's trashed thread again is....

1) empty, not under load

Save your personal trips while you are empty or stop enroute loaded if you must. I have never come out from under a loaded trailer other than company direction. That's just poor planning and lack of responsibility. Drop a loaded trailer in an unsecure location and most likely you will be fired if something happens. But drop a loaded trailer and bobtail, legally you are still laden if you got in an accident in that short distance unless your company relieved you from responsibility. Most companies will give you a card stating such.

2) To and from terminal.... personal conveyance
That's for drivers that live near their terminal, drop their trailer usually and bobtail home.

That doesn't include an OTR driver that works for a company in another state and you deliver 150 miles from home and told to deadhead home.
The statement says "short distances". 150 miles is not a short distance. Someone has to be able to look at your logbook with no help and see how you got from point A to point B. If someone saw you went off duty at one place and back on duty 150 miles away, flags are going to fly. Did this guy run another load or not? Some seem to think if you are empty and not under load, you are free to relocate to another city. No, you are not free to do that. Personal conveyance means immediate area.

Now there are exemptions for an owner operator to use his tractor trailer for personal use. He can use his truck to move to a new residence or if he wants to move some of his own personal property, he is not under the regulations. I didn't mention company driver because they won't let you use the truck for personal use.

 

It doesn't specify distance. If one typically averages 600 miles a day or more, 150 miles is short. All you need is premission from the owner of the truck to use personal conveyance, and again there is NO mileage limit in the interpretation.

This is why some of the large companies with EOBR's are using it to jog empty trailers around an area... Say the Dallas/Fort Worth area? (ie Three empty trailers in one night to different locations in that area could add up to 120+ miles)

 

They are wrong and when you say some, you mean yours.

Here's what I posted in the other thread.


You are missing key words.....short distances....in the vicinity of

Dead heading 150 miles home is not a short distance.

Personal conveyance is just an exception to run around a local area to take care of personal business.

You are not relieved from work until you get home.

They tell you to dead head home is a direction.
In this case the empty truck and trailer are considered property.

Though the FMCSA doesn't specifically address the issue of miles they sure tell what you have to do.
I did find one question about driving a empty truck to a shop.The answer was the empty truck was still property carrying as the empty truck was the property and therefore must adhere to the regulations.

 

OK, just what IS a short distance? Could it be 50 miles? 25 miles? 10 miles? 100 miles? The probelm is it ISN'T defined. What may be short for some may be long distances for others.

I'm relieved from duty or performing work and I could go ANYWHERE I personally want after my last drop... Strip Joint, Hotel, Mall, WalMart, Truck Stop, Home anywhere. In this sense, I'm not directed to go home... I choose to go home because I sleep better at home than in the truck... If I'm rested better, I perform better... and Safer. Therefore, using PC to get home increases the safe performance of my driving endeavors.

So if the case is about property, the boss has say of the use of his property. Correct? Where does it state in the PC interpretation that property ownership is an issue in the use of PC?

An empty truck moved to a shop is not PC as it is required for the truck to be worked on, to perform work... In other words, your taking it to the shop because of an issue that needs to be addressed for the truck to continue to perform work... It's NOT a personal choice. So the issue we are facing now is, "What is a Personal Choice for driving the truck under off duty time".

 

Let me re-post one from the other thread.

The personal conveyance exception comes from the FMCSA interpretations on 395.8.

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

These are the ONLY two allowed uses of a CMV as "personal conveyance". Just being "relieved from work and all responsibility for performing work" is not enough in and of itself.

Any other driving of a CMV would be DRIVING time.

 

That is the same argument I make, however the "safety director" and prez of my company want to venture into the gray and see how else this can benefit us.

I just keep reminding them of the increased liability that we're putting the company in by allowing so much PC time.

 

Does it matter that your teminal is in another state? (I live in another state by the border) Can I just log my way home on duty driving... then the next morning off duty drive to my terminal to get dispatched? In other words, it doesn't have to be terminal home then home termial in that order all the time does it?

 

Crete's policy is along the lines of the posts above. Specifically, we can not be hooked to a trailer, the PC exemption is only for going from a given location to, say, a restaurant and return to the original location. It does not include any one-way trips.

While we may be assigned to a particular trailer (and, in rare cases, be under load), we must be bobtailing to use the PC exemption.