Hey guys, I just got a phone call from one of my supervisors. He's a super trucker, ya know. :roll: We went back, and forth on the phone, and I finally gave up, and just said, "uh huh..ok, yeah, uh huh." Anyway, we have 3 trucks at our yard. One of them, the compressor went out. A local shop is gonna fix the truck. Well, we need all 3 trucks, so I rode out to our warehouse with my buddy, so I could bring one back.

Ok, on my log, while I was the co-driver, I showed all my time on the on-duty(not driving)line, until I got in my truck at the warehouse, etc. My know-it-all, super trucker supervisor proceeds to tell me that I have to flag atleast a 15 minute pre-trip. I said, "No need. I wasnt driving." That's when we went back, and forth on the phone. Well, I'm about to call my other supervisor that is the supervisor over the supervisors. He actually knows what there is to know about our industry, and I am gonna tell him that I aint gonna flag a pre-trip when I was riding shotgun.

I havent looked on the FMCSA website on this, but co-drivers dont show any pre-tip, right? I dont want DOT to bust me for doing something that I didnt have to do. :shock: :P

If you are in the jump seat, no you do not. When I take a new driver with me, they usally drive first on the route, they flag pre-trip, I go right from off duty to on-duty. Never had a problem yet with safety and our safety department is anal.

If you are not the driver then you do not need to flag any type of VI per FMCSA regs. Once you change and start driving then yes you need to.

Thats what i thought, the only time you ever need to pretrip is when you are the driver.

The only exception to this would be if there is a company policy requiring all drivers assigned to a truck do a VI together at all times.

Well, I was thinking that I didnt have to. I did make a couple of other pphone calls, and I was told that I dont need to worry about it. Hadnt had any other phone calls.

Also, if he did the inspection and indicated on your logs that he did it, you do not need to do one. This is how teams do it.

when I drove team each driver had to log the inspection at the beginning of their driving shift for the day and a post inspection before at the end of their driving shift. Maybe that differs from comapny to company. midnight

Again, that's what i thought. that way everyone is responsible for their own pre and post trips...

Throw that shgeet out and log it as sleeper berth :lol: