11 Hour Driving Time
 

From my understanding of the law, you are only allowed to drive a maximum of 11 hours a day with a 10 hour rest period, and the 10 hour rest period can be split into 2 berth sessions of 5 hours.

If I was to go from Seattle to San Antonio Texas it is 1992 miles using the Swift Terminals as points. I figured out that by the time I hit San Antonio, I would have 12 minutes over the 11 hour mark.

That's with the drive being absolutely perfect. Meaning: no need to stop and use the restroom, no traffic, truck stays at the exact same speed from the time you pull out until you pull in.

I always estimate my trip @ 50mph. That gives allowances for the above.

As for the question, if I knew I could be there in 12 mins, and I was going to be out of time, ya, I'd prolly finish the run. That is, if I knew for absolute certainty that I'd be able to go right to sleep when I got there, not end up loading/unloading when I pulled in, or not being allowed to sleep on their lot.

That happens (and it's happened to me).

11 hours driving time means 11 hours, period!
One minute past the 11 you are in violation! D.O.T. is very clear on this!
Breaking your sleeper birth time will not get you any more time to drive!
How many total hours are you thinking it will take you to get to SA?

Re: 11 Hour Driving Time
 

I beleive you are referring to the "split break"...as I remember it the rules are (1) minimum of 2 hours (2) must be in sleeper berth (3) total must equal 10 hours

hope this helps

I am looking at around 40 hours. Let me give you an idea of what I am trying to do so that there isn't any confusion.

I am starting school next week, and I am working on different aspects of Trucking, and I decided that I would tackle trip planning, fuel stops, and berth time. What I am trying to see is how much time it will take me to get into SA while maintaining the DOT regs. I am basing the trip on 10/hrs @ 50 MPH am looking at how best to approach the run.

So, in essence, I am not actually going to do the run as of yet, but I want to get practice in planning trips so that I don't do something stupid on the road and end up without fuel, or worse, violating the DOT regs... That would be very embarrassing. :oops:

wa.....your 40 hours is good! If your just figuring "drive time!"
Now, like I asked, "how many total hours to do the trip?"
I'm not being a smart azz, just working with you on this! :)
One thing on fueling, the company will usually dictate where you will fuel.
You have the right idea!
Once in school, and then time spent with a trainer, it will get very easy to do. Called time management, can make or break you!

I have to agree with freebird. 11 hours is 11 hours. But, I would finish the trip by adding in a 15 minute on duty/not driving. Instead of going over on hours would be likely to put that 15 minutes somewhere else (on duty/not driving or sleeping birth showing a 15 minute break)

Haha not a problem freebird, you can be as much of a smart azz as you want.

Round Trip will be 79.62 hours (Accounting for Berth + Driving, but not loading/unloading)

The company I am looking to start with, has drivers go to their terminals for fueling so that was easy to get the milage.

The other aspect that I was looking at was time of departure, estimated time of arrival (based on traffic patterns here in the Seattle area). I figure leave before heavy traffic or after (depending on when the truck is expected at it's destination)

Re: 11 Hour Driving Time
 

Actually, having two breaks in the sleeper that total 10 hours does not equal 10 CONSECUTIVE hours as DOT regs call for. As I was told, DON'T even try this unless you have to. It's easy to screw up and not worth the time lost out of service if caught or the money for the fine.

Re: 11 Hour Driving Time
 

I will have to talk to my trainer about that. I was under the understanding that if you work 14 hours, you can drive 11, but you can sleep 2 periods equaling 10 hours in the sleeper berth.

Here is what I got from safetruck.org:

Technical Amendments Clarify Sleeper Berth Regulations

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has issued technical amendments clarifying the new hours-of-service regulations. The majority of the revisions deal with clarifying the sleeper berth provisions.

Under the new rule, effective January 4, 2004, off-duty time is included in the calculation of the 14 consecutive hour on-duty limit. The only exception allowed to this provision is when a driver uses the split sleeper berth to accumulate 10 hours of rest. When taken in 2 periods, each of which are at least 2 hours (totaling at least 10 hours),

the sleeper berth time does not count towards the 14-hour limit. This means that the following must be counted toward the 14-hour limit:

* on-duty time;
* off-duty time not spent in the sleeper berth;
* sleeper berth time of less than 2 hours; and
* sleeper berth time of 2 hours or more that is not one of the 2 periods used to accumulate 10 hours of off-duty time.

A combination of consecutive sleeper berth time and off-duty time totaling at least 10 hours may be used to comply with the 10 hour off-duty requirement in sleeper berth operations.

you can only go over IF where you were headed was the Next SAFEST place to pull over in Extreme conditions. :P

So, if you can stop right at that 11 hour mark, then you have to regardless then. Kinda weird that they don't allow for a little flexibility.

.....is relative to the beholder.

To some it means 5 minutes.

To others, 12 minutes.

Then again 'to some' it might mean TWO HOURS.

There's gotta B a SOLID DRAWING line!

Seems like it's 11 hours PERIOD.

This opinion is from someone who doesn't know which end is up (and who thinks he understands/can read between the DOTTY lines).

can't believe that 7 people said it wasn't illegal

So, if you can stop right at that 11 hour mark, then you have to regardless then. Kinda weird that they don't allow for a little flexibility.[/quote]


As a professional, you are expected to plan your trip better than that. DOT will write you a citation faster than you say you ran out of hours for that.

and God forbid you got in some sort of accident after going over.
Everybody says it won't happen to them but it happens every day.

my two cents
 

yes, anything over 11 hours of driving is illeagal. Split Sleepr Berth:"Two periods of at least 2 hours in sleeper berth totaling 10 hours (this can extend the 14-consecutive-hour period). the total driving time immediately before and after each rest period must not exceed 11 hours. The total duty time immediately before and after each rest period must not include any driving after the 14th hour." that is the sleeper berth rule word for word right out of the book.. Hope that helps..

You can only drive 11 hours without taking a 10 hour sleeper berth break. You cannot legally drive more than the 11 hours unless, as yoopr says, there are extreme conditions in which you must go on.....such as bad weather, etc., You can legally split your sleeper berth time as long as each break is a minimum of 2 hours. However, you cannot drive more than 11 hours total time without the 10 total hours sleeper berth. The best thing starting out is to plan on not driving more than 11 hours per day and take the 10 hour sleeper berth break all at one time. Plan ahead so you don't run out of hours before you make your delivery. :wink:

Okay, so let me make sure this is right.

Unless there is a situation where it can not be avoided, at 11 hours you stop. Period, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Or to make it really simple, it's illegal!

Short answer.."you are correct sir!"
However the way you stated "where it can not be avoided" this can only be used in "adverse weather conditions or an emergency!" As said before there is a provision allowing you to drive to the nearest place to stop. This does not allow for poor planning on the drivers part ie...no parking at the truckstop, traffic stopped due to an accident or say "just five more miles to the customer and I'll be there!"
The way I found works for me was to plan on driving no more then 10 hours a day like under the old regs, that gives me a one hour cushion if needed, plus driving 11 hours added to the time spent on line four will eat your 70 up really fast!

Initially when I did a practice creation of the route I was going under the assumption that it would be 60mph all the way there, and when I saw Malaki's post, I re-figured everything and that is what put me at 12 minutes over.

When I changed the speed from 60 to 50, it extended my drive, but it allowed me to get to the destination with 13 minutes to spare. So either way it's cutting it close, which probably means that I'd have to leave earlier than I had initially planned.

All I have to say is that this is now making a lot more sense to me now!

You *can* drive over 11 hours. Why? Because you are to log accurately estimating to within 15 minutes.

If you leave 7 minutes before 8 AM, you can log it as 8 AM. If you drove without breaks, you could drive until 7:07 PM and log that as 7 PM. Thus you have logged 11 legal hours, but driven 11 hours and 14 minutes.

That's in theory. In practice, I can't imagine the case in which I couldn't fudge 15 minutes here or there.

yeah and suppose for some odd reason you got in an accident or "Situation" at 7:55 and your log book says you left at 8am-wonder what the DOT would say??

Given that the DOT regs say you're to log to within 15 minutes, I don't see that they'd have a lot to say really.

The guidence to those regs also say you are to round to the nearest 15 minute mark.

So if you are less than 7 1/2 minutes you round down and over that you round up.

In the case given to be properly logged you would actually have to show 11 hours and 15 minutes.

================================================
Note: A person must be very, very careful using the "adverse weather" provision to drive over the allowed amount of hours because in order to use it there is two criteria that must be met.

1: The run must have been able to be completed in the time frame the driver had to drive

2: The driver must not have been aware of the conditions prior to starting the run.

===============================================
Note 2:

When the FMCSA increased the alloted driving time from 10 to 11 the intention of the increase was to allow drivers an extra hour if needed to find a place to safely park and take their 10 hour break. Most DOT types know this and have less tolerance with a driver going over the limits than they used to.

:nervous: wow what a thread! susan; yooper is right, what if is always happening to me, murpheys law. 11 hours!!!! but anyway, is this thread going to be still open when the new HOS go into effect? 11 hours and stop. Piss Poor Planning.= Poor Performance. i sorta like to think i can plan my trip and leave open a few alternates just in case Mr. Murphey decides to ride along. my teacher says for us rookies plan trip averaging 45 mph and still leave open for fast or slow. :oops: :cry: sorry susan i was just mentioning you in the first sentance, plz don't take offence. your advice is always taken.

Bob, try this instead. Figure your trips at 50 mph and then simply add 1 hour to them. It is a lot easier to do in your head than 45 mph. Not saying your teacher gave you bad advice, because he didn't. Just that 50 is easier to figure IMHO.

11hrs
 

As i seen no one brung it up i will and probilly get flamed for it. But here it goes.

I try to drive at least 8 or 9 hours in a day but it may take me more i log by miles at 70/mph i may drive 600miles in a day

600/70 = 8.5 hours but due to traffic/weater/bathroom/food/etc.. it may take me 9-10 hours but all i show is 8.5 hrs but everyone is different but i dont break the 11hr rule unless its within 1hour for example if i drive 770miles/11hrs and my stop is 30 or 40miles away i will dirve to make it. plus i dont see anyone sitting and driving for 11hrs straight

That's how I log too, sonic. I use a lower mph in my calculations, but bacsically... I figure how long it *should* have taken me to get there in a perfect world, and that's what I log.

I don't do it to go over 11 hours in a day, but to just not burn up my 70.

While I'm driving, I'm on line 3... but when I stop, it may turn out that my log may have gotten there a bit before I did.

Re: 11hrs
 

there's no way in hell you can AVERAGE 70mph on your log book-You're asking for major trouble with that

Logging by how long it would have taken you to get there is a real good way to have something come back and bite you in the azz one day. It may not happen during a roadside check it might happen during a DOT audit 6 months down the road and they are going to wonder how you went 650 miles in 10 hours during the blizzard of that year (or something like it).

================================================
On a more "philisophical" note logging any other way than how you do it only reinforces trucking companies' behaviour when it comes to pushing drivers to meet extremely tight or impossible dispatches as well as continues to give them excuses to not raise the driver pay to what it should be.

I would not want to explain to DOT how my log is ahead of where I am nor would I want to explain why my log hasn't caught up with me. My partner and I don't even run 11 hours - we figure on 10 (sometimes we're over but most time right on the money). Why? We need the other time as our time. It is better if I vent at my partner than taking out on the people I have had to deal with on the road, we eat one meal together just to get caught up on the day/night, this morning my partner shut it down to watch a sunrise - if that's what it takes to make here happy, okay. We try to give ourselves at least 3 hours of team time. Been doing it that way for years, seems to work out fine.

Guess we run a little too legal than most. 8)

Running team and only driving 10 hrs?? :shock:
makes you want to say Hmmmmm
NOW the truth comes out-no wonder she can't drive when she's running single :P

You cannot legally log at 70 mph when the speed limit is 60 or 55 mph. If you are caught, you will probably be shut down and fined for log book falsification, which is a major fine and points on your CDL. Even if the posted speed is 70, you are taking a chance on getting a ticket. All you have to do is make a small error in your calculations and you are nailed. Your speed should ideally not be more than 2-3 mph under the posted speed in a particular state. Today, some of the DOT people, thanks to technology, can track your route from the time you leave until you are at the destination and tell how fast you were going. I was checked a couple of years ago in New York. The DOT guy did a complete inspection with about 18" of snow on the ground and -9 degree temperature. He plugged all of my information into his computer, which was in his van, and gave me a clean bill of health. I have no doubt that he would have ticketed me if he could have, legally done so. Just go ahead and log the way you are and one day you will either be checked or get into an accident, whether it is your fault or not, and you will pay the price. For me, it isn't worth the risk. I have more than 3.5MM miles without a chargeable accident or moving violation on my record. I have been checked on several occasions. I keep my log book straight and I don't log 70 mph in 55 mph states. I don't care for some of the rules, but that is part of this profession. We are not required to like them, but we are required to follow them. When you get caught, and you will at some point, it will reflect poorly on all of us. If you get close enough to fire you will get burned sooner or later. :roll: Mad Dog, I was beginning to think you were a figment of Bush Bunny's imagination brought on by acute sleep diprivation. :lol: How is the truck hunting coming along? :? :D

Better specify that 10 hours each! I sure don't want to to tick her off - remember I'm the one in the truck with her! :lol: :lol: :lol:

What can I say, she said she would buy dinner tonight - I got excited forgot what I was typing! :D

You can't even log 70mph when the SPEED LIMIT is 70mph-CAN'T be done

It's not at this point - I have to get her home. I still don't have her up to speed on hours, she seems to be burnt out.

Glad you clarified that-I was about to call both of you LAZY!!!!!!! :P

Words of wisdom here! Very true.
I've always found,that if you can make your log average 55-60 mph,you'll never have a problem. The closer to 55,the better.