Tire Chains

But FMCSA Said that is not viable option. Because getting weather reports are widely available and part of the job and should be figured in trip planning.

 

The rebuttal to that is that my trips start 36 hrs before I hit the snow zone, and there is no way to tell if it will snow during my driving shift or not, let alone if chains will be required.

 

Nice try...but no dice! The rule states "what could have been done in 11 hour drive time"....your 36 hour begin time is moot to this exemption. If you got caught in the snow zone due to an accident or zero visibility, you would have up to 2 hours additional (past your 11, not 14) to get to a safe parking area...not an additional 2 hours to complete your run. Additionally, it isn't only the driver that qualifies for the "knowledge" of the adverse driving conditions ahead, it also pertains to your dispatch who could notify you of problems ahead.

 

She left a lot of slack on that chain, eh

 

I always wandered how tough they were on that adverse condition law. Also wondered if you could use it to get out of bad places. I remember completely out of hours once and had to stay at my P/U because the ####ing load wasnt ready. Camden , NJ and man you talk about a ####hole. Dangerous as ####!!! The crackheads were out like flies and no help if needed.

 

They are very strict with it! And your example will not be an acceptable excuse to run over your 11 hour drive time. Another example of experience and that learning curve. Know where you are going and anticipate problems...keep time available for necessary movement if possible.

 

No just bad scheduling by DM. There should be something like that though to let you keep rolling when truly need to. I only used it once in PA headed into OH. Simply no where to park and it was icing issue more than snow. We had a tough safety log reviewer and never questioned it. How would you do it on an Electronic Log?

 

According to FMCSA, “If unexpected adverse driving conditions slow you down, you may drive up to 2 extra hours to complete what could have been driven in normal conditions. This means you could drive for up to 13 hours, which is 2 hours more than allowed under normal conditions.Adverse driving conditions mean things that you did not know about when you started your run, like snow, fog, or a shut-down of traffic due to a crash. Adverse driving conditions do not include situations that you should have known about, such as congested traffic during typical “rush hour” periods.

Key word is unexpected a driving into snowstorm is not unexpected if forcasted. You are expected to keep up with the weather.

 

The mother of all snow storms is one thing, but for us, running over the Oregon Blues, it's a crap shoot if it ices, snows, blows. Sure, the forecast says "chance of snow". A little snow is fine, and we'll meet the schedule. 70 miles on chains is not a little snow, that's ice and wind, most likely. There's no forecast for that.

We run live cargo, and once we are loaded, we gotta go. We use "adverse conditions" any time the chain law is up, but the road is not shut down. It has not been an issue yet. We don't really use it on the return with "dead" cargo, because it doesn't really matter if we're a day late.

 

Fellas why are talking about winter its nearly May, I vote we let this thread die until at least mid October.