Does Driving Off Duty Start Your 14 Hr Clock?

Got to my receiver way early, got unloaded, and now I've been done for awhile. Through all of that my 10 hrs is compete. I'm waiting and waiting on my next load assignment but would rather do so eight miles away at a truck stop area as opposed to parked on a side street. Don't want to do it if it'll start my 14 since I have no idea how long I'll be waiting.

Thanks for any advice

Using the truck as a personal conveyance would not start your 14-hour clock, since that is considered off-duty time. But if you are hooked to a trailer, some companies will interpret this as ineligible for use as a personal conveyance, while others will not. (Since you're trailer is empty and you haven't been assigned a new load, that would fall under "personal conveyance" from my reading of the regulations linked above. Others will surely disagree.)

The second question then is, does your electronic log have a Line 5 for "Off duty driving"? If so, use that. If not, you would have to figure out how to get from the receiver to the truck stop without having it go into driving mode.

Actually to comply with OFF DUTY - DRIVING. You must INTEND on returning. If you get dispatched prior to returning, then you leave from your current location under On Duty driving as you are now under dispatch. You don't have to return. You just must INTEND to return.

The 5 criteria for OFF DUTY - DRIVING are:

1) Personal Conveyance - The reason for your travel must be personal in nature. Food, Shopping, Shelter, Home.

2) Intent to Return - You must INTEND on returning to the location where you began your off duty driving.

3) Not Dispatched - You must not be dispatched to the location you are driving to. Company is not paying you to go to said location.

4) Unladen - You must not be under a load. There is no specific guidance whether it means only bobtail or both bobtail and deadhead.

5) Reasonable Distance - You must be able to travel to said location rest and return from during the duration of a 10hr break. Since humans are generally accepted as requiring 8 hrs of rest, you are limited to 1hr of travel away from starting location.

At least that is my understanding of the rules for off duty - driving. If I am wrong, I am sure Rickipedia will pop in to correct me.

Drive Safe and God Speed.

I do this all the time. Get unloaded, (must be unloaded) go to of duty driving, and mark "personal conveyance" in the comments. You're golden. Works perfectly for when you're out of hrs. and the customer makes you leave. (In the other comments box I'll write "safe haven".)

Diver Diver wrote:

I do this all the time. Get unloaded, (must be unloaded) go to of duty driving, and mark "personal conveyance" in the comments. You're golden. Works perfectly for when you're out of hrs. and the customer makes you leave. (In the other comments box I'll write "safe haven".)

Couple of things; depends on the interpretation/definition of unladen and how a particular DOT inspector applies available guidance. Unfortunately there is some ambiguity and many times depends on your carrier's policy on this status. Regardless, there is risk in doing as Diver Dan suggested as his SOP.

Use of the term "safe haven" is only applicable for parking a truck carrying hazmats. Beyond that use, the term is irrelevant (means nothing) especially when referring to driving past available hours in order to find a place to park.

Here is the JJ Keller link to: Personal Conveyance

There is no such thing as off duty drive in a lognook, it's just off duty time.

It won't start your 14 hour clock and who ever said it did honestly needs to go back and study the rules.

Theirs also no limit to how far you can travel, well there is and it's a "short distance" , whatever that means.

Got to my receiver way early, got unloaded, and now I've been done for awhile. Through all of that my 10 hrs is compete. I'm waiting and waiting on my next load assignment but would rather do so eight miles away at a truck stop area as opposed to parked on a side street. Don't want to do it if it'll start my 14 since I have no idea how long I'll be waiting.

Thanks for any advice

It won't start your 14 hour clock and who ever said it did honestly needs to go back and study the rules.

Werner, the question was not asked in reference to the rules. It was asked in reference to how their ELD system works. So, there is a way to log "off duty driving" so that you will not inadvertently start your 14 hour clock.

It is important that each driver knows how his company expects this to be logged, and under what circumstances it can be done.

As far as the D.O.T. officer's interpretation... at this point it's anybody's guess.

My opinion is that off duty driving should be used in a very limited way. I think over the last twelve months I used it three times, and each of those times I was on the road doing a 34 hour reset. I was bob tail without a load or pre-plan dispatched to me.

Well that wasn't in the op, anyhow regardless of company policy they can't force you to log falsly, if op chooses to move they need to call their logs department or whoever is in charge of his eld and have them change it to off duty.

It won't start your 14 hour clock and who ever said it did honestly needs to go back and study the rules.

Werner, the question was not asked in reference to the rules. It was asked in reference to how their ELD system works. So, there is a way to log "off duty driving" so that you will not inadvertently start your 24 hour clock.

It is important that each driver knows how his company expects this to be logged, and under what circumstances it can be done.

As far as the D.O.T. officer's interpretation... at this point it's anybody's guess.

My opinion is that off duty driving should be used in a very limited way. I think over the last twelve months I used it three times, and each of those times I was on the road doing a 34 hour reset. I was bob tail without a load or pre-plan dispatched to me.

regardless of company policy they can't force you to log falsly, if op chooses to move they need to call their logs department or whoever is in charge of his eld and have them change it to off duty.

There is provision for off duty driving, and you can log yourself that way without falsifying your logs. Each company has the discretion of setting their system up to allow this or not. Just because your company may not allow you to log yourself onto off duty driving does not mean there is no provision for it in the regs. It is very limited in it's scope as I tried to stress already.

I'll give my .02 example. I am on a dedicated account for Werner in Vermont. When I get up to the shipper/consignee, and my next load picks up after my 10hr break is over, I can request PDT through a macro after I send in my empty message.... As long as I answer that I am NOT available to pick up my next load, with the reason why (usually load not ready works) and the dispatchers unload me (usually about 5-10 minutes), the PDT macro will answer PDT ok, and I send in a log request, which pops up an option for "Off Duty Driving", which does not start my 14 hr clock.

If the dispatcher doesn't unload me in the computer (which happens because the dispatchers get busy) then I get a PDT denied with a message loaded/committed.... and usually that can be resolved by a call to the dispatcher asking to be unloaded so I can request PDT....

the closest truck stop is 9 miles away, but it takes 17 minutes each way. so it takes about 40 minutes round trip... I'm not sure if there is an "Official" amount of time the DOT allows, but we have never had a problem....

There is no way all of this off duty driving is legal. If you could just say, "Hey, I'm empty" and take off driving off duty that's what everyone would obviously be doing. Every deadhead mile would become off-duty driving, as if they hadn't considered this when making the rules in the first place.

"Hey, Jim. We don't have anything for you right now. Why don't you go off duty and head to that truckstop about 170 miles from you near Dallas and we'll see if anything comes up." ::wink::wink::

You guys handle it anyway you like. I was on paper logs my entire career and cheated every day. We all did, and we knew exactly what we were doing. I got caught sometimes, and fined sometimes, and even fired sometimes. And I was fine with that because that's how the game was played. We didn't have to worry about accruing any sort of CSA points against us for that back then, which is of course why they built the CSA system.

So just be aware that regardless of what your company OK's for you, that doesn't relieve you of responsibility. It might get them in trouble, also, but there's no such thing as saying, "I broke the law because my company said I could so I'm not responsible."

You are indeed responsible. Just be aware of that.