quick loading question

Opening a can of worms?

Technically On Duty not Driving.

 

anytime you enter the sleeper berth it can be logged as such.

 

[TABLE="class: TableFMCSA1, align: center"]
[TR]
[TH="class: LeftTableHeadFMCSA, align: center"]PROVISION[/TH]
[TH="class: LeftTableHeadFMCSA, align: center"]PRIOR RULE[/TH]
[TH="class: LeftTableHeadFMCSA, align: center"]UPDATED RULE – COMPLIANCE DATE
FEBRUARY 27, 2012[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="class: MiddleTDFMCSA1"] On-duty time [/TH]
[TD="class: MiddleTDFMCSA1"] Includes any time in CMV except sleeper-berth.[/TD]
[TD="class: MiddleTDFMCSA1"] Does not include any time resting in a parked vehicle (also applies to passenger- carrying drivers). In a moving property-carrying CMV, does not include up to 2 hours in passenger seat immediately before or after 8 consecutive hours in sleeper-berth. [/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/topics/hos/index.htm

It doesn't say anything about what seat you're in nor whether or not if the engine's running.

 

When I was pulling vans I always logged "off duty" while I was getting loaded or unloaded. It saves your 70.

 

Don't fret over the details and don't confuse your log book or complicate the job of updating your book. There is no benefit or need in switching from off-duty to sleeper IMO in such a situation (waiting or being loaded). But technically sleeper berth confines you to sleeper (or perhaps passenger seat), where off duty you can be in the driver seat watching tv, in the sleeper napping, or getting a taco from the roach coach. No one cares and no one is going to interrogate you what you were in fact doing from 08:30 to 09:30 in Harrisburg while you logged off duty. If you are not required or allowed to be on the dock as you're being loaded/unloaded, it's off duty unless you just want to burn up your on-duty hours needlessly.