when the FMCSA published the rules, they clearly stated that the restart MUST be designated as a restart BEFORE you certify your logs for that day.{the day the restart begin!}.
by doing so, it prevent a driver from designating another restart within the next 168 hours.
to MY understanding, this will becomes a BIG problem for team expediters, as they do not know in the beginning{!} of a restart if it will be in their best interest to designate it as a restart.
Note that once you begin a restart period, there is nothing that says you cannot abandon it. If a reason rises for you to drive, and if you have enough hours remaining to do the driving you want, you can do so. You just won't get the restart you originally intended to get.
Our restart strategy will be to take them as soon and as often as possible. The further in the past a restart is, the sooner you will be eligible to earn the next one.
The new rules affect teams such that before, you could restart drives in sequence, but now you cannot.
Example:
Under the old rules, Diane goes into sleeper at end of her shift on Thursday, at 3:00 a.m., and begins her 34 hour restart clock. I come out of the sleeper to begin driving at 3:00 a.m., complete the morning delivery, drive to a truck stop, fuel the truck, park, do a post-trip inspection and then go into the sleeper to start my 34 hour restart clock.
Thirty-four hours after Diane went into the sleeper, (Friday at 1 p.m.), she has her restart and 70 new hours of log book time. If a reason to drive developed, Diane could do so while I remained in the sleeper to complete my 34 hour restart.
Under the new rules, neither of us would not restart until Saturday at 5 a.m. because of the requirement that a restart break include 34 hours AND two periods from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.
The new rules effectively changed a 34 hour restart to a two-night restart, and they limited restarts to once a week.
If it is true that you have to declare the beginning of your restart period by noting it on your paper log or EOBR, it will be interesting to see how the scale cops treat an abandoned restart that is followed in the next day or two by a new declaration.
How do you undeclare a restart period if you start one but abandon it before it is completed?