My dispatch has gone and lost his mind
 

Yesterday I was finishing up my week by dropping the trailer at our shipper. Part of the "finishing up" routine is to call in to dispatch just to see if there's anything needing discussed. I started driving yesterday in Waterloo, NY at 2am, so yes, I was tired when I parked.

He proceeds to tell me that me and the other driver on the account need to drive to Easton, PA *THIS* weekend, meaning today, to pick up another truck and trailer for the account. Wait - no one knew anything about this the other 5 days of the week so I knew about it? I've ran pretty hard all week so I told him that if I go after a truck, I won't have a restart on my hours. That's when he got stupid.

He tells me that I don't have to log any of it - just mark it as "personal use" in the logs. Really? Personal use of a commercial vehicle can be a 400 mile run, with a trailer, for company business? I always interpreted the personal use "law" as just that - doing something personal, like running to Wal Mart for some snacks or to the local porn shop. Not only that, but one of us would be driving the other out there in our own car. Sorry, but my car doesn't go anywhere for free, but he didn't so much as mention reimbursement for that. If I'm taking MY car for company business, I expect to be paid owner-operator rates in it, including FSC, for all miles driven.

That crap went through me like a ton of bricks yesterday. I called in to our safety department to ask them if what he told me to do (logging) was legal or not. I'm 99.9% sure that it's not. The problem is that no one ever got back to me yesterday. He (my dispatch) called me a couple more times yesterday, but I had "accidentally" couldn't figure out how to answer his calls. Strange how that happens.

You're right. He's wrong (and probably stupid.)

1) Doing ANY work at the direction of and/or on the behalf of the company... (or any OTHER company/job) whether compensated or not... is on duty (line 3 or 4.)

2) You driving your car to get there would be line 4... and (since you don't have a sleeper)... so would your passenger/co-driver (unless he is allowed to take 8 hours off before driving back.)

I'll find you the reg and guidance if you need it.

why driveing your car to get a compny trk ur hit bye a nother car/trk/bus or plane hum..... personal time bet you wishen you were home watching nascar. comapany time at lesss your coverd and wages will still be comming in. log it cover your ass. oh and you should be on the plane or call your dispacher ask were the lemo is.

Not quite Hobo. There's no "probably" about it he IS stupid.
Some of these office types know better ( or should) the just want to get a little more time out of you with little effort.
I'd bet he knew about picking up that truck at least a week ahead of time and just put it off when it came to crunch time he just assumed the slack jawed driver would take care of it.
Good for you Malaki!

I blow by that Petro in Waterloo about 2AM every weekday, if I hada known I'd've bought ya breakfast.

I spoke to my dispatchers boss this morning. I explained everything to him and he flat-out told me that, no, I was not to run out there on "personal use". He was REALLY pissed that my dispatch waited until Friday at the end of my day to tell me about going after the truck. He said that my dispatcher had told him (his boss) that he (my dispatcher) had talked to me a couple of times through the week about me going after the truck, which was a flat-out lie. There are actually 2 trucks and trailers sitting there to be picked up. They've been sitting for the past 2 weeks. I told him to pay for a 1-way car rental and we could both go out to pick up both trucks. I even told him which rental companies to use. Who knows where it'll go from here, but my ass didn't do much more than making a trip to Wal Mart for camping gear, then to the pool for about 4 hours to beat this heat a bit.

should of gone to a bar stuff him ,had to do over hours here once ,boss promised to pay full hours for a month if caught .that the stand down period here at the time for exceeding log book hours

Hey Logbook and Mitchno1, would you guys like to read what you just wrote and then explain it in plain english please? I found it hard to understand what you were trying to say.

Chunker, you have to read Mitchno's like a Kiwi person to understand it:p Silly lot those blokes are in the wintertime down under right now.