Personal Conveyance Use Of Truck

[greg334]

In your scenario, the dot would put you OSS for 10 hours if you are caught.

Relocation is a business thing, and under Bigred's explination, it is a business thing, not a personal thing.

Beside of all of this, FedEx may have a Corporate policy about personal use. With that said not all companies allow line five logging and a few discourage it.

 

[60MPH]

Greg I see what you are saying, the driver would not be telling the DOT that it was a business relocation. He would just use a excuse like going to meet family or friend's and at the last minute your plans fell thru. So you decided to take a break and conveniently at the end of your break or a few hours after that a customer just happened to call needing your service and you just happen to be close by.

 

[MYGIA]

In your scenario, the dot would put you OSS for 10 hours if you are caught.

Relocation is a business thing, and under Bigred's explination, it is a business thing, not a personal thing.

Beside of all of this, FedEx may have a Corporate policy about personal use. With that said not all companies allow line five logging and a few discourage it.

In my initial reply to Doug, I clarified that it was in fact “trucking related”, therefore not qualifying to be logged as PC. Your are correct that to not log it would have been wrong and subject to being placed OOS if caught doing something wrong.

However, I did it correctly, logged the move properly as on duty and driving. It wasn’t only the best option in playing it safe, but it was the only option in doing what is right.

 

[CharlesD]

Hmm...now why do I drive a Sprinter?

 

[greg334]

Charles, I agree.

MYGIA, me too. I have no choice but to log driving on duty when the truck moves. I think that many are crying about things because of the 'unfairness' of all of it without understanding the whys with their carrier. FedEx has some great operators who do some amazing things with logs, but nevertheless they have to think about themselves first when it comes to liabilities.

60mph, so you move up and get a load. So you get into an accident and someone gets hurt, even if you were not at fault. They look at the logs and put it all together that you didn't have the ten hour reset or even an eight hour rest. You may have a big legal issue with what you just decided to do because you just obfuscated your sleeper berth time aka 10 hour reset. Any lawyer will use that to screw you to make you pay, even if it is not your fault.

 

[nightcreacher]

Doing a relocation is different than just going to the laundromat or Wall mart,or even visiting relatives.In any case,to be able to use your truck as a personal vehicle,you cannot be under load,and you must be out of service.Doing this with a C or D unit is a real gray area,cause you could actually pick up a load from where ever you are,which would have you dead heading while off duty.Little different in a tractor,as you have to go back to the original place to pick up your trailer.In any event,you still have to be out of service,this means no dwell time,so you probably won't be getting a call for a load anyway.

 

[greg334]

Steve,
I go back to what I was told by a few state DOT officers, who actually enforce the law and other said I was FOS.

They said that if it has a box, then it is considered under load until it is found otherwise. That is because they can't tell what's in the box. With a tractor, as one said you don't haul invisible trailers so it is obvious that you are not dispatched.

 

[Bruno]

One of the problems I see with personal conveyance is we have these HUGE FedEx signs all over our truck. If we get in an accident while on personal conveyance who are they going to sue? Can we explain to the lawyer we were just going down to the grocery store for a loaf of bread? Will the lawyers want to see all of our history in our log book? Will the huge FedEx sign say they have money lets sue the company? We have not been through this situation so I can only speculate on how this could be handled.

With the new QC you have off-drv that you can use for the 45 minutes as soon as you go one second over the 45 minutes you go to on duty driving.

Makes you think if it's worth having those signs on with all the new laws. They see FedEx and they see $$$$ signs.

 

[BigRed32771]

Doing a relocation is different than just going to the laundromat or Wall mart,or even visiting relatives.In any case,to be able to use your truck as a personal vehicle,you cannot be under load,and you must be out of service.Doing this with a C or D unit is a real gray area,cause you could actually pick up a load from where ever you are,which would have you dead heading while off duty.Little different in a tractor,as you have to go back to the original place to pick up your trailer.In any event,you still have to be out of service,this means no dwell time,so you probably won't be getting a call for a load anyway.

In all my conversations with FMCSA, I made it clear that I was using a straight or box truck. This was not an issue in their interpretation. The key is "unladen." If you haven't picked up a load, you are "unladen." You do not have a "Bill of LADING." So even if you are dispatched, i.e., you have accepted a load offer, until it is time for you to depart toward the pickup since you are still unladen you may use personal conveyance. You do not have to be out of service with your carrier; being available for a load offer or dispatch does not make you on-duty. Marking off-duty is sufficient. If questioned by an authority, it should be a simple matter to open the box doors and show that there is no load on board.

You should return to the point of origin, or at least the same community. I don't always go back to the same truck stop after being out on PC, but I wind up close enough in the same community (in other words, I short flag my return). If I'm not coming back after my PC, I don't/can't call it PC and so go ahead and mark myself on-duty driving from the beginning.

As for the issue of being dispatched while on PC status, if I need to leave immediately for an ASAP pickup, I merely mark the location where I am at the time and go on-duty. My Clink data will provide information regarding when I was dispatched to match what my log shows. Is it possible I might have to argue this one out with an authority? Yes, but I think I can win it. If this is the biggest obstacle to using PC to your advantage, then skip it.

 

[highway star]

Steve,
I go back to what I was told by a few state DOT officers, who actually enforce the law and other said I was FOS.

They said that if it has a box, then it is considered under load until it is found otherwise. That is because they can't tell what's in the box. With a tractor, as one said you don't haul invisible trailers so it is obvious that you are not dispatched.

So if you get stopped you show them you're off duty, open your box to show it's empty and it's all good, right?

 

[highway star]

This was not an issue in their interpretation.

And there it is. It all comes down to an individual officers view and whether he wants to make it an issue. It's about as confusing as trying to interpret the Bible, isn't it?