Logging/On duty/Off-duty question

[madii'swife]

Ok, we are once again trying to figure out what actually counts as legal and what is "creative".
Scenerio:
Day began at 5 am, 15 pretrip, drove 1.5 miles to shipper, waited until 10 to dock,sat until 12 pm. Company is saying if under 20 miles were driven its not required to log it as on duty, and trying to say he didn't need to do his pretrip until 10 when he docked to the shipper, and that would be when he went on duty.
Sounds fishy to me, but I'm unsure if the short distance makes a difference as they are saying. Thanks for the input (and arguing) I'm sure will follow

[Rawlco]

If you look hard enough you can find the loophole regarding small time increments not needing to be logged. I am not going to take the time to look it up tonight. Technically any activity that takes 7 minutes or less "MAY" be ommited from the logbook. This is the same as not breaking up your sleeper berth break for 5 minutes to visit the restroom, or not logging drive time when you take two minutes to move to a better spot in the truckstop during your break.

It all depends on weather you want to follow the letter or the spirit of the law. The choice is up to you. A better solution may have been to park at the shipper so no action would have been required until the loading process began.

[Uturn2001]

Ok, we are once again trying to figure out what actually counts as legal and what is "creative".

Logging what was done, when it was done, for exactly the amount of time it was done is legal. Everything else is "creative".

Anyway the "anything less than 20 mile and it doesn't have to be logged" bit is wrong.

What a driver can do is when making multiple pickup and deliveries in the same town they can log all the dock time spent together in a single entry and all the driving time spent making those stops together in a single entry.

Anyway time spent doing an activity of less than 15 minutes may be flagged in the remarks section of the log book as already mentioned. The time spent on those activites in the flags must be added into the correct time frame at the end of the day however.

[Rev.Vassago]

The time spent on those activites in the flags must be added into the correct time frame at the end of the day however.

Please cite this in a regulation or an interpretation, as I don't believe it exists.

[Dawn]

Ok, we are once again trying to figure out what actually counts as legal and what is "creative".

Logging what was done, when it was done, for exactly the amount of time it was done is legal. Everything else is "creative".

Anyway the "anything less than 20 mile and it doesn't have to be logged" bit is wrong.

What a driver can do is when making multiple pickup and deliveries in the same town they can log all the dock time spent together in a single entry and all the driving time spent making those stops together in a single entry.

Anyway time spent doing an activity of less than 15 minutes may be flagged in the remarks section of the log book as already mentioned. The time spent on those activities in the flags must be added into the correct time frame at the end of the day however.

Correct me if I am wrong, but is this what you are trying to state here? This is the regulation regarding logging multiple stops in the same city etc. Same thing I believe you are trying to say here, but you made it sound like at the end of the day they account for the time: The best way to put it is. You can combine all time spent on line 4 and all time spent on line 3 together. The on-duty must be logged at the beginning of the time you was in the same city and the line 3 time must be logged at the end of the period you was running in the same city. Then you would carry on as normal logging or take your 10! I hope this also clears up Rev's request for you to show it from the book.

Question 6: How should multiple short stops in a town or city be recorded on a record of duty status?

Guidance: All stops made in any one city, town, village or municipality may be computed as one. In such cases the sum of all stops should be shown on a continuous line as on-duty (not driving). The aggregate driving time between such stops should be entered on the record of duty status immediately following the on-duty (not driving) entry. The name of the city, town, village, or municipality, followed by the State abbreviation where all the stops took place, must appear in the "remarks" section of the record of duty status.


Sorry if this is not what you was referring to

[Rev.Vassago]

I think he was referring to this:

Question 1: How should a change of duty status for a short period of time be shown on the driver's record of duty status?

Guidance: Short periods of time (less than 15 minutes) may be identified by drawing a line from the appropriate on-duty (not driving) or driving line to the remarks section and entering the amount of time, such as "6 minutes," and the geographic location of the duty status change.

However, nowhere in the regulation does it state that you need to add those periods of time up at the end of the day, and add it to the total amount.

[Dawn]

I think he was referring to this:

Question 1: How should a change of duty status for a short period of time be shown on the driver's record of duty status?

Guidance: Short periods of time (less than 15 minutes) may be identified by drawing a line from the appropriate on-duty (not driving) or driving line to the remarks section and entering the amount of time, such as "6 minutes," and the geographic location of the duty status change.

However, nowhere in the regulation does it state that you need to add those periods of time up at the end of the day, and add it to the total amount.

Only Uturn will know what he was thinking for sure! Between the 2 of us, it is one of them he was referring to. It could be a combination of both.

The statement below
UTURN
What a driver can do is when making multiple pickup and deliveries in the same town they can log all the dock time spent together in a single entry and all the driving time spent making those stops together in a single entry. is what makes me believe he is trying to explain the Q&A I posted.

[glasman2]

Sometimes I think I get it, then other times it gets confusing, mostly when people start to argue a point or 2.

Guess I'll figure it out when I'm actually on the road. Tho I think I get most of it. Just hope I don't get fined in the process of figuring it out.

[madii'swife]

Sometimes I think I get it, then other times it gets confusing, mostly when people start to argue a point or 2.

Guess I'll figure it out when I'm actually on the road. Tho I think I get most of it. Just hope I don't get fined in the process of figuring it out.

The moment I start to think I get it, my husband mentions something else. The thing for me is I will never DO it, so I doubt I'll ever truly understand, just don't like it when his dispatcher tries to tell him he should have run until 2 am and had the load delivered on time, even though he'd been up since 5 am trying to deliver the load before. I'm trying to learn the "give and take" that goes with the industry..while still trying to help him learn to run as legal as he can.

[got mud?]

Sometimes I think I get it, then other times it gets confusing, mostly when people start to argue a point or 2.

Guess I'll figure it out when I'm actually on the road. Tho I think I get most of it. Just hope I don't get fined in the process of figuring it out.

The moment I start to think I get it, my husband mentions something else. The thing for me is I will never DO it, so I doubt I'll ever truly understand, just don't like it when his dispatcher tries to tell him he should have run until 2 am and had the load delivered on time, even though he'd been up since 5 am trying to deliver the load before. I'm trying to learn the "give and take" that goes with the industry..while still trying to help him learn to run as legal as he can.

good luck. if he was to tired to drive just say that. hours should not even come into play. the problem is some guys goof of all day and then when they are late they cry out of hours. you also have some guys that dont worry about hours and log creativly and get the load there no matter what. his dispatcher doesnt know what type he is yet. me personally i would have taken a nap and got the load there but I dont know the whole story. in all honesty most dispatchers dont care about hours and such they just want the load there so they dont get chewed out when its not. your hunsband just needs to do what he is comforable with cause he is the only one that will have to live with the choices that he makes. next time the dispatcher tells him something he is not comforable tell him to ask if he wants to discuss it with safety.

[Xcis2]

The FMCSR [federal motor carrier safety regulations] are confusing. If the company says you can drive and not log it as driving time, then the company should be able to cite where in the FMCSR that practice is allowed. I bet they cannot do that.
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If you are at the controls of the vehicle whether it is moving or not, that is logged as driving time and it counts against your 70 hours.
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If you are not driving but you are also NOT free to leave the premises, you log that as on duty not driving and it counts against your 70 hours. For example: pre and post trip inspections, fueling the truck, safety or other mandatory attendance company meetings. There are others of course.
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Just because a company says it is okay to log that way, does not make it legal. Use the Qualcom and ask dispatch if the company will pay for any logging violations the driver gets from DOT for following the company instructions on logging. I bet the answer is that the company will not pay. Some dispatchers[ most dispatchers?] are not competent in legal logging.
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I strongly advise everyone to run a legal logbook. Play logging games too long and the driver gets overly tired and the final result is accidents and job termination. Be safe.

[Rev.Vassago]

If you are at the controls of the vehicle whether it is moving or not, that is logged as driving time and it counts against your 70 hours.

Periods of less than 15 minutes can be flagged, and do not count towards your 70 hours. Situations where you are loading and unloading several shipments in the same city can be logged together with ON DUTY (not driving) time (without changing lines for driving in between the shippers), and wouldn't count towards your 11 hours driving, but would still count towards your 14 hours and 70 hours.

[glasman2]

OK... does the sleeper berth stop the clock at all during the 1st 14 hours?
meaning, if you got tired, decided to pull over and take a nap. Say you wanted to take a 1 or 2 hour nap, but wake up and it 4 hours later, drive the rest of your 14 hours, can you reset with the 6 hours left?

I'm thinking not and you just screwed yourself out of miles and you have to take 10 total. Right?


there is no splitting your 10 hours in half.

[Rawlco]

Your fourteen hour clock does not stop except for an 8 hour or more sleeper berth break. If you are going to log 8 hours or more you may just as well take a ten hour break to reset the 14 hour clock.

You can search for posts by me and/or golfhobo explaining the split sleeper berth rules.

[Myth_Buster]

Rawlco mistakenly says:

If you look hard enough you can find the loophole regarding small time increments not needing to be logged. I am not going to take the time to look it up tonight. Technically any activity that takes 7 minutes or less "MAY" be ommited from the logbook. This is the same as not breaking up your sleeper berth break for 5 minutes to visit the restroom, or not logging drive time when you take two minutes to move to a better spot in the truckstop during your break.

Uturn2001 correctly says:

Anyway time spent doing an activity of less than 15 minutes may be flagged in the remarks section of the log book as already mentioned.

Uturn2001 incorrectly:

The time spent on those activites in the flags must be added into the correct time frame at the end of the day however.

Rev says:

Please cite this in a regulation or an interpretation, as I don't believe it exists.

Dawn correctly cites the appropriate interp for multiple stops in one town as having to accumulative:

Question 6: How should multiple short stops in a town or city be recorded on a record of duty status?

Guidance: All stops made in any one city, town, village or municipality may be computed as one. In such cases the sum of all stops should be shown on a continuous line as on-duty (not driving). The aggregate driving time between such stops should be entered on the record of duty status immediately following the on-duty (not driving) entry. The name of the city, town, village, or municipality, followed by the State abbreviation where all the stops took place, must appear in the "remarks" section of the record of duty status.

madii’swife ask:

Ok, we are once again trying to figure out what actually counts as legal and what is "creative".
Scenerio:
Day began at 5 am, 15 pretrip, drove 1.5 miles to shipper, waited until 10 to dock,sat until 12 pm. Company is saying if under 20 miles were driven its not required to log it as on duty, and trying to say he didn't need to do his pretrip until 10 when he docked to the shipper, and that would be when he went on duty.
Sounds fishy to me, but I'm unsure if the short distance makes a difference as they are saying. Thanks for the input (and arguing) I'm sure will follow

§395.8 Driver's record of duty status.

(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.

(f) The driver's activities shall be recorded in accordance with the following provisions:

(f)(1) Entries to be current. Drivers shall keep their record of duty status current to the time shown for the last change of duty status.

§395.1 Scope of the Rules in This Part

Question 26: May a driver record sleeper berth time as off-duty time on line one of the record of duty status?

Guidance: No. The driver's record of duty status must accurately reflect the driver's activities.

If you go from off-duty to on-duty log the time, if you go from SB to on-duty log the time. I’d get used to it, EOBR are coming sooner than later.

Be safe.

[Rawlco]

If I am mistaken then apparently the FMCSA Guidance is also mistaken.

link here

Question 1: How should a change of duty status for a short period of time be shown on the driver's record of duty status?

Guidance: Short periods of time (less than 15 minutes) may be identified by drawing a line from the appropriate on-duty (not driving) or driving line to the remarks section and entering the amount of time, such as "6 minutes," and the geographic location of the duty status change.

This specifically mentions ". . . appropriate on-duty (not driving) or driving line . . ." and any changes from those lines should be flagged. This does not apply to a change from the sleeper berth or off duty lines. I am not going to flag every time I step out of the sleeper to visit the restroom. If I happen to ask someone on the way to the restroom what time they think I will get unloaded that also will not warrant a flag for the entire thirty seconds it took.

-------------------------------------------
Also if Uturn is correct that

less than 15 minutes may be flagged

Then the opposite must also be true, that they MAY NOT need to be flagged. Because by definition the word "MAY" gives us an option. . . to do or not to do.


Busted.

[Dawn]

If you are at the controls of the vehicle whether it is moving or not, that is logged as driving time and it counts against your 70 hours.

Periods of less than 15 minutes can be flagged, and do not count towards your 70 hours. Situations where you are loading and unloading several shipments in the same city can be logged together with ON DUTY (not driving) time (without changing lines for driving in between the shippers), and wouldn't count towards your 11 hours driving, but would still count towards your 14 hours and 70 hours.

Rev: I am not trying to start a war here ok! Many drivers have mistaken how to log when doing multiple stops in one town.
The part about doing multiple stops is not true. You must log all time spent behind the wheel as driving time and all time spent on-duty as line 4.
What DOT states is you can avoid drawing the lines as you do it and combine the time in groups. To do this say you work a total of 4 hours doing local work (normally OTR driver) you spent a total of 2 hours loading/unloading and 2 hours total driving (all different stops) then you must log 2 hours on-duty (first) then 2 hours driving (last) then continue on as logging as normal (if you are not out of hours by this time). The line 3 would count against your driving time. If you are required to fill out a log sheet and you drive you must account for the miles driven with line 3.
Before you ask: Please read the sentence in between the smiley faces.

Question 6: How should multiple short stops in a town or city be recorded on a record of duty status?

Guidance: All stops made in any one city, town, village or municipality may be computed as one. In such cases the sum of all stops should be shown on a continuous line as on-duty (not driving). The aggregate driving time between such stops should be entered on the record of duty status immediately following the on-duty (not driving) entry. The name of the city, town, village, or municipality, followed by the State abbreviation where all the stops took place, must appear in the "remarks" section of the record of duty status.

[Dawn]

Your fourteen hour clock does not stop except for an 8 hour or more sleeper berth break. If you are going to log 8 hours or more you may just as well take a ten hour break to reset the 14 hour clock.

You can search for posts by me and/or golfhobo explaining the split sleeper berth rules.

If you did have the 4 hour break (consecutive) at the end of your 14 hour you could have taken an 8 hour sleeper break (instead of 10). Then you would of added up driving time in between the 4 & 8 hour break and subtract that number from 11; that is how many hours you would have to drive. You would need to figure when your 14 hour would end.
Which you count over from 14 hours from the end of the 4 hour break, then count over 8 hours from 14 hour you just counted (the 8 hour extension) and that is when your 14 hour would actually end. The driving time you had available would need to be completed by the end of the extension of your 14 hour. I have a few examples of split breaking I can e-mail ya, just send me "PM" and I will rely with the attatchment. I dont believe I can attatch it on here.

But true nothing extends the 14 hour except an 8 hour sleeper break, but the 2 hours or more still kind of helps just not the same as before!

Split breaking is still very usefull (not as good as before) and is very easy to do it continusouly.

[Myth_Buster]

If I am mistaken then apparently the FMCSA Guidance is also mistaken.

link here

Quote:
Question 1: How should a change of duty status for a short period of time be shown on the driver's record of duty status?

Guidance: Short periods of time (less than 15 minutes) may be identified by drawing a line from the appropriate on-duty (not driving) or driving line to the remarks section and entering the amount of time, such as "6 minutes," and the geographic location of the duty status change.

This specifically mentions ". . . appropriate on-duty (not driving) or driving line . . ." and any changes from those lines should be flagged. This does not apply to a change from the sleeper berth or off duty lines. I am not going to flag every time I step out of the sleeper to visit the restroom. If I happen to ask someone on the way to the restroom what time they think I will get unloaded that also will not warrant a flag for the entire thirty seconds it took.

What the interpretation says is:

Guidance: Short periods of time (less than 15 minutes) may be identified by drawing a line from the appropriate on-duty (not driving) or driving line to the remarks section and entering the amount of time, such as "6 minutes," and the geographic location of the duty status change.

Flagging the change is not an option, listing the amout of time the task required is an option.

-------------------------------------------
Also if Uturn is correct that
Quote:
less than 15 minutes may be flagged


Then the opposite must also be true, that they MAY NOT need to be flagged. Because by definition the word "MAY" gives us an option. . . to do or not to do.


Busted.

My bad, Uturn2001 used the word MAY, the regulations do not:

(c) For each change of duty status (e.g., the place of reporting for work, starting to drive, on duty not driving and where released from work), the name of the city, town or village, with State abbreviation, shall be recorded.

Day began at 5 am, 15 pretrip, drove 1.5 miles to shipper, waited until 10 to dock,sat until 12 pm. Company is saying if under 20 miles were driven its not required to log it as on duty, and trying to say he didn't need to do his pretrip until 10 when he docked to the shipper, and that would be when he went on duty.

How you do your log is your choice, however:

(f) The driver's activities shall be recorded in accordance with the following provisions:

(f)(1) Entries to be current. Drivers shall keep their record of duty status current to the time shown for the last change of duty status.

Question 26: May a driver record sleeper berth time as off-duty time on line one of the record of duty status?

Guidance: No. The driver's record of duty status must accurately reflect the driver's activities.

The information provided is regarding not logging short trips of Line 3. I doubt anyone would mind a driver not flagging the change from SB to off-duty if the driver was going to use the restroom. However, drivers that log sleeper berth while off-duty have been cited for false logs when toll receipts indicated the vehicle was in motion while a solo driver was logging SB time.

A driver may use a CMV for personal conveyance while off-duty. However, a driver cannot use a vehicle as a personal conveyance from the sleeper berth.

Be safe.

[Born and RaiZed]

Just say your dog ate your logbook! :twisted: