Using Agri Exemption

We go off duty personal conveyance setting on the tablet.

Than enter a comment of “begin agriculture exempt “

 

Here is a link to the full explanation and requirements for Ag Exempt: Agricultural Exceptions and Exemptions to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Hours of Service (HOS) and Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) Rules

If you qualify, you are AG Exempt from "normal" HOS while you are operating inside of your 150 mile radius. Therefore, you can deal with it in one of three ways (as explained in the above link.)

As one who installs ELDs and trains drivers how to use them, it is my opinion that the easiest (least painful) way to deal with it is to log in and immediately go to "Personal Conveyance - Ag Exempt" status. The "Ag Exempt" can be pre-programmed as a status option in some ELDs, and if not on yours, then type in "AG Exempt" in the comment areas of any ELD. Stay in that status unless you go outside of your 150 radius. When you do go outside, you will have to momentarily pull over and go into normal duty status (leave PC) and then go on logging normally like any other driver. As soon as you come back into your 150 radius, you go BACK into PC-Ag Exempt.

Another way you can do it is to simply NOT log in while you are operating inside of the radius, but this will result in "unassigned miles" that and Admin will need to go back later and manually annotate as "Ag Exempt" usage. To me, I like to eliminate any editing after the fact if possible, so I would use the PC method in the above paragraph. But either way is legal.

 

Correct - if you do not log in and yet drive the vehicle, the ELD will record those miles as what they call "Unassigned miles." The FMCSA states that they want an admin to go back later and assign those miles to someone. So, that's why I usually say to have the driver log in and use PC-Ag Exempt status unless the company has a full-time office worker whose job it is to keep all of those miles properly noted. Many operations don't have such a person though.

 

One word of advice: be careful that if you are in PC and you stop the truck and turn off the engine, make sure that you are STILL in PC when you get back in and start it the next time. There is no clear guidance from FMCSA yet about this one quirk. In other words, some ELD makers leave you in PC indefinitely until you physically push the button and go back to normal duty (even if you turn off the engine.) Others will leave you in PC only until you turn off the motor. Then when you turn the motor back on it may or may not ask you if you want to still be in PC (depending on the maker.) So just make sure that every time you get back in and start that it is actually STILL IN PC (off-duty driving) mode. If you accidentally move it in regular duty mode it is very painful to fix that in the back end (on purpose by design of the FMCSA regs.)

 

After you leave the farm.

We mostly use it for a farm that is within 150 air miles of us when we need it in a pinch.

Safety doesn’t like us to use it though we are fully qualified

I bump into a lot of guys at the dairies that use it daily.

 

Yea I had that happen one time when I first started driving last year.

I dropped my trailer at the dairy and went tooling around the area in my bobtail.

I threw my tablet on the back bunk after entering personal conveyance with a note of buying groceries


I didn’t see that it asked me if I wanted to stay in PC after turning motor back on after shutting down

If you didn’t answer it flipped you into violation I had hours of me driving around in violation that night that HOS had to fix