Pre & Post Trip Inspections Required?

Annual inspections etc
Regulations Section

Driver prohibited from running defects on a 18 wheeler company or O/O that fails morning and or evening inspections. If company wont sign and fix defects, that driver is BANNED from driving that truck an Inch. Period.

Regulations Section

DVIR pretrips and end of day regulations

Regulations Section


Any time you have questions, refer to the DOT FMCSA Green Regulations Book that has been issued to you. You should always have a copy with you at all times. ESPECIALLY if you happen to be facing off with a policeman who might not know the regulations in your own defense.

 

Am I reading thru those regs right where it says a one truck one trailer motor carrier doesn’t have to perform a DVIR ?

 

Correct, no need to complete the report but you still have to do the inspections. For multi-truck carriers they are no longer required to file any DVIR that shows no defect but one is still required so that the next driver of the truck has a report to review and verify that the truck had no defects.

As for log book, only one inspection per day needs to be logged per the regulations, but both need to be performed daily. You can log the pre-trip inspection as on-duty not-driving and then flag the post-trip inspection as off-duty.

 

Excellent clarification.
I think this is what the op was looking for and I also learned something new.

 

Technically the only requirement is that the driver be satisfied the truck is good operating condition. The inspection, in itself, is not required.

 

Actually no. There are no regulations that require an inspection, much less logged.
The post trip is a paperwork requirement, and not even needed if no defects found.
The pre-trip is simply that the the driver must be satisfied with the whole list of required components.

 

To add to this, if you have an accident that is caused by a defect, say a tie rod end or wheel throwing debris when it was ripped apart and it was preventable by a pre-trip, then your liability for that accident went up a lot.

You as a driver have to ensure the safe operation of the truck and bring to the owner any defects that need to be repaired, either immediately or within a reasonable time frame. YOU as an OWNER need to insure that the truck is safe to run if the driver brings any issue or defect to your attention - in other words, you have to play two parts and make sure that the truck won't cause an accident.

I don't see why anyone wouldn't do a pre-trip, a full one, it takes a few minutes and covers your *****. A post trip should be done just to extend that covering of your **** as an owner.

You guys should listen to some of these ambulance chasing lawyers some of us owners have talked to, they are ruthless and a few know the game better than we do. It is scary.

 

Neither @ZVar nor I are suggesting that someone not perform a pretrip inspection. I don't know how a driver can be satisfied the truck is in good condition without one. We are saying there is no statutory requirement to perform one. That was the OP's question.

 

You are playing with semantics here, we all know what the intent of the regulation is when it says the driver must be satisfied that the required equipment is in satisfactory condition.

As for logging, it can be extrapolated that the pre-trip inspection must be logged as it is required by the inten, just not the letter, of Part 392. Since you must be satisfied with the condition prior to using you must perform some sort of inspection, and by definition it would be on-duty time.

As for flagging the post-trip and completing the report when required, that is simply a post-use report so the time to complete is minimal and no physical inspection is implied by the intent of the regulation.

Sometimes guys like you and me get caught up in the letter of the regulation and spend time arguing about what is not said rather than the intent of what is said. I stand by my earlier statement given the intent of the regulation even though you are correct there is not a comand that says "thou shall inspect the truck and log it for 15 minutes".

By getting caught up in the letter rather than the spirit of a regulation we can lead some drivers astray, especially those that don't fully grasp the rules or the accepted industry standard practices.

I will have to dig deep, there was previously published guidance from the FHWA days or maybe even the OMC days that did interpret the regulations to require a physical inspection and gave guidance on how and when to note it on the RODS.

On a side note, I would love to see all the current guidance on the FMCSA site updated to remove the outdated references to 8 hour breaks, FHWA and so on, it would really help the new drivers make sense of the rules we play by.