Unfair "OUT OF SERVICE"in PA

Only in small redneck towns like where I live, lol. Actual our cops are pretty cool now. All they care about is DUI's. Our last sheriff was crooked. He left office a millionaire. There are Buford T's out there. Even a Boss Hogg.

 

I am curious if it might also be due to the fact that the shop he was guided to might be the safest/closest place to park for repairs. Just because you are guided to a place doesn't mean you are told "this is the only person legally allowed to repair your vehicle".

 

There were some commercial cops in CA just over the NV border who got busted a few years back for doing something like this. Turns out that they personally owned the shop in question and were later imprisoned for their part in the setup.

 

Back in May a PA officer K put us out of service at the rest area @ 246mm EB. If it's the same Officer K (and probably is) he did not "recommend" any service facilities, nor offer any help whatsoever. Not that he's supposed to or anything.

Fact is, my son had it coming and I'm glad in a sick sort of way that he got the tickets. Bottom line he was pushing the 11 hr rule and hadn't updated his paper logs since departing Chicago. I wasn't there and really no way to be certain, but I ran the miles and give him 50/50 odds of being legal on the 11/14. From his last log entry to the start time on the ticket was 9 hrs, 52 min.

Officer K then wrote him up for duty status not current. When he then updated his logs with Officer K over his shoulder he missed the time zone change and wrote down 12 hrs driving and 15 hrs on duty. Officer K kept writing and gave him two more for the 11 and 14 hour rules. Not quite feeling the young driver had quite learned his lesson, he proceeded to comb over the equipment and found a one of four outside guide brackets on the trailer tandems loose. So he whipped one more ticket on him. When he was all done, he told him not to move the truck for 10 hours and go take a nap. With that, he hopped back in his hoopty and rushed off to go catch another unsafe trucker.

Later on that night after his break, my son tightened a nut on the loose bracket, securing it. He drove 30 miles down the road to refuel the reefer and to purchase/install a new locknut for that bracket before continuing to Philly. At the fuel counter, he realized that his CDL was missing. Maybe Officer K took off with it in his shirt pocket? Maybe in all the excitement my son dropped it. It's an unsolved mystery. A couple of calls to the PHP post yielded not even a call back to say "eff ewe". I emailed him a photocopy and had him finish the delivery and secure the truck at the t/a in Paulsboro, NJ and fly home to get his lost CDL replaced. I felt that after that OOS incident, the round trip air and lost time would be a heck of a lot cheaper than getting stopped again soon with a photocopy of a CDL.

So was Officer K a dick? I'd say yes. Was Officer K out of line or doing anything illegal? Nope.

I'd say, given my experience, that maybe Officer K got up on the right side of the bed that day and he cut you a break offering to lead your OOS truck to a repair shop a few miles away and save you a road service or wrecker bill. IMO you probably need to suck it up, pay the ticket, and forget about it.

At the end of the day, this trip cost my son about $700 in addition to about that much in downtime on top of it. We went to e-logs as a result and he now has greater respect for being on point with his paperwork, virtual or not.

 

The time zone change makes no difference, you just log on the time your company is out of, so this part has me confused.

 

I think the poster logged the time he was in rather than where his terminal is. My phone changes time with zones.

 

He screwed up not having his logs current and that set off a rubber glove inspection that he wasn't prepared for. It was a case where the time zone change added to the stress of trying to write an accurate trip spanning midnight with Officer K breathing down his neck. I'm surprised he didn't screw up even more. He started fumbling and Officer K zeroed in for the kill.

If he'd been up current on his logs, the worst he'd have had to do is park it right there in the rest area. And might have had just enough drive time left to move to a better parking lot. Officer K would have just moved to the next victim after not finding anything to encourage a closer look at everything else. The e-logs he's on now does all the math for him so that's no longer a problem. The side benefit is that it's a corrective action and has tightened up our HOS compliance. There have been no further issues and he's passed a subsequent log inspection on another random check with no problems noted.

I also pointed out that now he will have those HOS violations come up every single time our DOT number gets run, and he should expect them to scrutinize his logs whenever they get a chance to.

 

Where is this written?

 

Can you just up and leave someone on the side of the road/interstate?

 

Yup. Do I? Not usually. I try to get them off the interstate where they can call road service or to a truck stop. If the guy acts like a dick? I have been known to leave him there and throw the triangles out.