Still Struggling To Understand HOS

For the life of me I cannot fathom why some of you.. Donna, Joel, etc. are making this so difficult.

It's REALLY simple. You can drive up to but no more than 11 hours in a shift. Once you start your duty clock, you have 14 hours to complete your driving.

You cannot drive again until you've had at least 10 hours off duty

Any 8 hour consecutive period in the sleeper berth will PAUSE your 14 hour clock.

You must take a 30 min break before 8 hours of your shift have passed.

You haven't gained anything back after a 30 minute break.

Log what you do when you do it. Anything else is FALSIFICATION of LOGS. You cannot do a pretrip off duty.

Y'all are making my head hurt.

Learn to read your summary people!! It will show what you have available at all times.

You know I didn’t realize that a bunch of rookies discussing our understanding or misconceptions and asking old timers for advice was causing anyone a headache. I promise it won’t happen again!

Go with Susan's explanation.

On a daily basis, you have the clocks: 14 hour SHIFT and 8 hour DRIVE.

The SHIFT starts, then it maxes out 14 hour later. Simple as that. (Hint: you don't have to work the entire 14 hours. If you're best trip plan means stopping after 9 1/2 his, so be it.)

The 11 hours DRIVE time is more flexible. Within your 14 hour shift, you can DRIVE up to 11 hours, with as many breaks as you need. You can't drive more than 8 hours in one go.

That's where that 3 hours shows up, and it really means nothing. The only practical thing about it is that if you take a break less than 3 hours after you start driving, you must take another 30 minutes off to get all 11 hours in. Maybe a look at these numbers themselves can help: 11-8=3

Another help for your figgerin': 12 hours after 7am is 7pm. 14 hours is 2 more than 12 (patience please!!) So 14 hours after 7am is 7pm plus 2, or 9pm. Start your day 3am? Add 2 and you know you'll done at 5pm.

Same thought for you on your 10 hour break, only use 2 less. Ending your day at 3pm, take off two, and you plan to start your PTI at 1am.

You can take your 30 minute break at any time, but, if you take it too soon, and you are trying to drive your full 11, you will not be able to. You will need another break

For example, you drive 2 hours, take a 30. You can then drive 8 hours, and you will have to take another 30, so you will lose that last 30, as your 14 hour clock will run out.

And yes, pre and post trip, and any other work has to be on duty.

Technically, if you work a job outside of trucking, it is supposed to be logged. So if you worked on your 34, it is supposed to be counted as on duty time. Even washing your truck at home is considered work related and is supposed to be logged as on duty.

Donna, we completely understand that it's confusing - most government mandated regulations are. Sometimes in these discussions we get to talking about separate issues and it makes it even more confusing. Here's an example...

You made this statement...

The 11 hour drive is in two parts 8/3 . You can take your break anytime! Say u get to gate waiting on a door 2 hours after starting go on off duty. U will receive 2 hours back after 30 minutes and will lose the other hour if u don’t take a second break. The clock only gives 8 hours.

You are talking about what you see on your Qualcomm. We are trying to explain what the rules are. That becomes two different things. The rule says you have to take a break within eight hours of starting your clock. That's why you only see 8 hours on your clock. It's designed that way to help you work within the rules.

The eleven hour drive is not in two parts of 8/3. It may seem that way because you see that 8 hours when you get started, but the rule is simply that you can drive 11 hours within a fourteen hour window, but you must take a 30 minute break before eight hours goes by. Of course if you take it too early, as in the example you gave, you'll need to take another thirty minute break because you'll come upon the 8 hour mark again before you've burned up 14 hours.

You don't receive any hours back, because you already had 11 hours drive time. You'll see more hours on your clock, but you didn't "get them back" from anywhere. You had them all the time. They appear on your clock because you followed the rule and took your break. I know it sounds like we're splitting hairs, and yet I understand what you're saying. You're going by what you see on your Qualcomm , but we are trying to explain the rules. That's two separate things. The Quallcomm is programmed to follow the rules. Therefore it's showing you when you have got to take that break.

To be honest, what you are doing works for you, and I completely get how you came to those conclusions, but when we're trying to explain the rules we need to try to stick to what they are, not necessarily how we interpret them by what we see on our Quallcomm clocks. Susan meant no harm. It just gets frustrating when the waters just keep getting muddied up.

Of course if you take it too early, as in the example you gave, you'll need to take another thirty minute break because you'll come upon the 8 hour mark again before you've burned up 14 hours.

That is what I was trying to say but didn’t quite have it right. I usually drive at least 5.5 hours before taking my 30, that way I don’t need another.

In my 2 years at Prime I've had my logs audited by DoT three times. Never was I found in violation of anything. Since the beginning I've always logged my pretrip off duty as Prime taught me to. None of the DoT officers had any issue with it. One particular officer spent a very long time going over every line and edit my trainer and I had made. He had zero issue with off duty pre-trips. I would think that with a fleet of 8000+ driver's being periodically audited this would have emerged as a problem by now, if it was one.

You are required to perform a full inspection at the completion of your day. This is why Prime has us log our post-trip on duty. Before driving you must be satisfied that your vehicle is in safe working condition. This is why we log roughly 15 minutes of off duty pre-trip to show a start of day "walk around".

Some companies have different policies when it comes to logs. Some error on the side of caution, like those that forbid the use of 8/2 splits. How about we just log our logs the way our company wants them logged, and not give others grief for following our companys policies?

Plan B wrote this...

You are required to perform a full inspection at the completion of your day. This is why Prime has us log our post-trip on duty. Before driving you must be satisfied that your vehicle is in safe working condition. This is why we log roughly 15 minutes of off duty pre-trip to show a start of day "walk around".

Really? Do all Prime drivers ascribe to this approach and get away with falsifying their logs? That’s exactly what you are doing here...by performing work while logged off-duty.

That said...so how is it that no DOT officer ever cited me for performing a full PTI BEFORE I moved my truck at the beginning of every shift if it’s indeed required at the end of a shift? I’ve gone through and passed 7 e-log inspections!!! Not once has a DOT officer suggested flipping the order of the PTI...so how is that a “requirement”?

The report you displayed does not correspond to a full PTI. Not even close. You know that. A post trip inspection requires 10 minutes ...and that includes filling out the report Macro. In order to deem the vehicle fit for service you must perform the full PTI BEFORE moving it!

Sorry Plan B I will argue this point until the cows come home (as will Susan) ...and suggest your approach will earn most of us an all expense paid trip to an unpaid log class to justify why we falsified our logs. Joy!

Log “what you do” and “do what you log”. Off-duty is meant for just that, non-job related activities and NOT inspecting your truck. Again, please show us where your exact approach is supported in the FMCSA guidance you offered.

Hoping other experienced Prime drivers chime in on this...Turtle, Rainy. Y’all really do this?

In the meantime...I’ll continue performing the full PTI before driving the truck at the beginning of every shift and NOT risk or compromising my personal safety and the safety of others.

Me too G-Town. If I failed to show pretrip, fueling, scaling... any work at all as on-duty, I'd be fired for falsifying logs. I too would love to see the rules that currently allow work to be done while logged off duty. I think I'll ask that Indiana DOT officer that runs that Facebook page about it.

Now after these proposed rule changes go into effect, my understanding, if it goes as proposed, we'll be able to actually do work on our 30 minute breaks and have the ability to also pause the 14 hour clock for up to 3 hours. But that's a whole another can of worms.

Ok done. I've messaged Officer Hoover and asked for clarification on the legality of logging an off duty pretrip. I'll let you all know what he says when he responds.