to flag or not to flag

I was told by a Federal auditor the company does not dictate beyond the scope of regulations and creative log book keeping is frowned upon, in other words illegal and fraudulent.
http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/administration/fmcsr/fmcsrruletext.aspx?reg=395.8

§ 395.8

Read down to the following:

(e) Failure to complete the record of duty activities of this section or § 395.15, failure to preserve a record of such duty activities, or making of false reports in connection with such duty activities shall make the driver and/or the carrier liable to prosecution.

The words of the site, not my opinion. I used to conjoin my pre trip or post trip with fuel and annotate it as such, it would read, pretrip inspection and fuel or post trip inspection and fuel.

Fuel on the road was on duty not driving and gave the book 30 minutes of my time doing such duties, we had a full blown federal inspection that lasted 4 days after a driver had a serious accident and the federal inspector gave all my logs a thumbs up and was the only driver to pass his scrutiny. Lucky I guess?

 

I agree, no one stays in the saddle non stop for 11 hours.

 

On elogs youll change your duty status to on duty. After you are done you can either go off duty or just start driving, your logs should automatically flip to driving

 

I guess I'm going back to page one of this thread. The pre and post trip thing in the US and Canada.
Since some of us cross daily, how am I supposed to log these?
As stated, US, requires post, Ca. requires pre, which makes more sense to me.
I log 15 minutes on each, no problem there, but when I sign the vehicle inspection report, per Ca. rules, aren't I in violation of the US rules, as in falsification? Anyone know? It appears to be a conflict of rules between the US and Ca. Just sign it per your home yard location?

 

That seems logical, and really that's how I do it. Another thing here is that I do my pretrip at say 1500 on Thursday, sign the report, then drive until 0300 on Friday, use another 15 minutes for a post rip, it includes fuel. So, here I am, showing a post trip for one trip, then a pretrip for another trip that ends on the following morning. And only signing the report once. Then throw in the difference between the two countries. Hell, I'm confusing myself here.
I think if the MTO or DOT questions me, I'll just lay on the ground and spin in circles, may be they'll just leave me alone then.

 

Actually, I have... with no PIPI.

 

Don't see what the issue is with that. You get a rhythm going, putting miles behind you...it's all about time management. Every stop at a truckstop is 30 mins from the time you hit the exit ramp off the interstate, stop at the end of the ramp, drive to the truckstop, park, walk in, do your thing, walk back to the truck etc, etc, etc.

 

I think you are getting into an area that, while there are some technical differences, as long as you show a pattern of logging inspections and filling out reports, none but the most "unfriendly" of enforcement officers would take issue with it. Yes, technically you must meet the regulations of the host jurisdiction, but I have never had anyone take issue with what I was doing (and I was subject to frequent thorough inspections due to the fact the carrier I was leased to had a very poor safety record and history of compliance... all such inspections of mine were zero defect).

I used full-page loose leaf paper logs that the upper half was the log and the lower half was the Canadian Daily Vehicle Inspection Report (DVIR). The DVIR covers more than what is in the FMCSA regs. for a U.S. post-trip. There are also two little boxes to indicate whether a pre- or post-trip. I always logged 15 minutes pre- and post-trip and filled out the DVIR once per day. I would check the box according to what country my day started in.