ELD''s in cargo/sprinter vans

[Moot]

I read the title.And the thread.

Did you comprehend what you read?

I'm just more in line with John Mueller's thinking.

I understand John's thinking and agree with it! The Hours Of Service Certificate I posted was an additional record for driver's who don't punch a clock to verify their total hours on duty the previous 7 days. I wasn't sitting on a bar stool when I read his post so that could be why you and I differ interpreting his "thinking".

The van driver becomes an operator of a Commercial Motor Vehicle at the time of commencement of the hazmat load requiring placards. The regulations state that the driver must maintain a record or log of hours worked for the previous 7 days. That record could be a time card or log and should contain a record of all hours worked for compensation in those previous 7 days. Pizza cook, mowing lawns, tending bar, driving a cargo van with regular freight for a motor carrier- all are forms of compensated work in the spirit of the law.

It is ALWAYS better to safe than sorry. You could call several knowledgeable people, including staff at FMCSA and get multiple different answers to this question. What matters is that you have your self and your carrier protected from any and all possible liability. In this business the garbage always seems to fall through the cracks.

Thanks!

Some van people may think likewise but they want to follow your thought process because it works better in the van world.

Again, since I'm not on a bar stool, we aren't communicating on the same plane. Please explain your perception of my thought process.

I image by the end of 2018 we'll read a courts idea of which idea is correct.
I doubt that I'll ever drive a van commercially, but it'll be interesting.
If a hazmat laden van ever strikes my vehicle or that of a loved one, he better hope my legal team can't recreate a previous 7 days that wouldn't look good on a log book.
I may not win, but I'd love the fight.

Who knows what a court will decide in the future. The HOS Certificate I posted is accepted as a legal form of accounting for a driver's previous 7 days. ELDs are the future but not all commercial vehicles will be equipped with one. There are provisions in place for drivers and vehicles that stay within 100 air miles but occasionally go beyond and thus must log. So while ELDs are in the future there will still be some paper form, like a logbook or log sheet to meet these drivers needs and some form of the HOS Certificate will be used to verify the previous 7 days. This should also apply to the lowly van drivers that occasionally haul hazmat but would otherwise not log or need an ELD.

I would probably go easy on the van guys that are great contributors to this site. Both of them.

BTW, you get style points for not saying "a ELD."

You're so cute and generous when you're drunk. How long before you get mean and physically threaten me?

 

[Turtle]

BSJ, When I drove in a van, I started paper logging the moment I was dispatched on a HAZMAT load. I dated a log sheet for seven days prior (regardless if I worked or not) and showed off duty the entire time. I believed that I was doing the correct procedure and I never had a kickback from a Safety Department. Now, about the pizza cook, here is the FMCSA regulation that applies:
§395.2 Definitions.

On-duty time means all time from the time a driver begins to work or is required to be in readiness to work until the time the driver is relieved from work and all responsibility for performing work. On-duty time shall include:

(9) Performing any compensated work for a person who is not a motor carrier.

I believe the operative comment in para. (9) is "not a motor carrier." Therefore the pizza cook must account for his 8 hour shift as on-duty and this time should be reflected in the driver's available on-duty and driving time when he gets into a CMV. The cargo van driver was hauling non-hazardous prior to the HAZMAT run but this work was for a motor carrier therefore para. (9) does not apply. Although, the spirit of the regulation applies and I believe a motor carrier and the driver should comply with this concerning available hours for HAZMAT dispatch.

It is true that paragraph 9 wouldn't apply to the cargo van driver who was hauling non-HAZMAT prior to the HAZMAT load, but paragraph 8 most definitely would apply. Paragraph 8 says:

(8) Performing any other work in the capacity, employ, or service of, a motor carrier;

Back when I hauled HAZMAT, there were times when I hauled a placardable load once or twice a week, requiring me to pretty log log all the time. But there were other times when weeks or months would pass between placardable loads, and at those times I did the same as Terry did with the previous seven days - logged it as off duty (or OOS). I knew at the time that instead of doing it that way I should be accounting for them either using logs, or by certifying my hours on the Hours of Service Certificate. But I also knew that regardless of the method used, each method was equally unverifiable. I used the logbook method and logged off duty (or OOS) simply because that's the method that scale cops are used to looking at and they had no way (or compelling interest) to verify the previous seven days in any event. Things would be different in the case of an accident while placarded, though.

People talk of the spirit of the regulations, but really the FMCSA doesn't do spirits very well. Instead, they write it down. The "spirit" of the On-Duty definitions is you're on duty if you perform any work that you get paid for. Doesn't matter who you do it for. The only exception to that are those who are First Responders and the Weekend Warriors, and even that is in writing.

 

[Moot]

Moot, I'll save you some time.
Don't bother re-reading the entire thread or the title.
Read John Mueller's first two sentences.
Carefully.

I did! One of these days I'll get drunk and read them again. Then maybe we can communicate on the same drunken plane.

If you want to play truck driver, at times you'll have to act like a truck driver.

So I should find a bar stool and start drinking with my phone in one hand? Cherz an 104 good buddys. enh who was zat.

 

[BigStickJr]

Turtle is getting it.
Moot, since I didn't read your form, does it say 10 hrs on the first, 12 hrs on the second, or does it reflect noon to 10 pm on the first, 0600 to 1800 on the second, etc ?
I'm thinking since 395.2 that the less informative form would have become obsolete.
JM said that as soon as you load that HM load, you become a commercial driver. A commercial driver is required to have the logs showing accurate records of his previous seven days.
The point I'm trying to make is if you load a HM load on the 8th you probably won't or can't recreate an accurate account of the previous 7 days.
In the event of an accident, phone records, video footage could be used to prove falsification, if logs were deemed to be needed.
At that point the driver, carrier are fried.

Have you ever seen me abusive ?
That was borderline rude.

 

[BigStickJr]

Glancing back quickly to see what I may have missed, I see references to "I used to....."

I used to doesn't cut it in 2017.

 

[Ragman]

 

[BigStickJr]

Next time John checks in, he can give us his opinion on the usefulness of your form, or the reporting of off duty the previous seven days for someone that was hauling freight in an under 10,000 pound vehicle.
I believe he addressed part two, but he'll need to simplify his answer.

 

[BigStickJr]

If I were in Dayton tonight I could ask Murray about CRE's position, if the jukebox wasn't too loud.

 

[BigStickJr]

Moot, do you have a thing against bar stools ?

I once sat on a wheel chock but really didn't find it comfortable.

 

[BigStickJr]

I did! One of these days I'll get drunk and read them again. Then maybe we can communicate on the same drunken plane.


From your response I figure you're the one that's drunk.
And I'm not on a plane.

 

[BigStickJr]

I did! One of these days I'll get drunk and read them again. Then maybe we can communicate on the same drunken plane.


From your response I figure you're the one that's drunk.
And I'm not on a plane.

 

[geo]

CEVA is requiring all units to have new eld's system wide. Pitt Ohio requires it's van drivers to log for a long time

 

[Moot]

Moot, do you have a thing against bar stools ?

No I don't have a ting against bar stools. I sometimes find it difficult to have a coherent discussion with a person on a bar stool.

And to be frank, I didn't read your document.
Either because it wouldn't show clearly on my iPhone or it was too far into happy hour for my eyes to focus.

 

[BigStickJr]

Moot, do you have a thing against bar stools ?

No I don't have a ting against bar stools. I sometimes find it difficult to have a coherent discussion with a person on a bar stool.

And to be frank, I didn't read your document.
Either because it wouldn't show clearly on my iPhone or it was too far into happy hour for my eyes to focus.

You don't have a TING against bar stools ?

It's Monday and at least I'm sober enough to complete a sentence.

 

[JohnMueller]

Moot - The certificate you posted very much resembles the document - Driver's Statement of On-Duty Hours - which I always have drivers complete at the time of orientation. The intention is so we as the company carrier do not ask that driver to exceed the HOS regulations with our first dispatch after the driver completes orientation. The document does list the previous seven days and the hours worked. Again the key issue is dealing with the variety of roadside inspectors, each roadside inspectors knowledge of the regulations, and disparity of enforcement between the inspectors, and their states priorities.

Nice work Moot!

 

[BigStickJr]

John, will that form be enough to cover seven previous days in 2018 ?

 

[Turtle]

John, will that form be enough to cover seven previous days in 2018 ?

There has been no rule change in the regard. I'm guessing that's because it's going to be really hard to enforce the use of ELDs on drivers before they became drivers, on the off chance that they might someday become drivers. The rule is 395.2 (j)(2), which states:

(2) Motor carriers, when using a driver for the first time or intermittently, shall obtain from the driver a signed statement giving the total time on duty during the immediately preceding 7 days and the time at which the driver was last relieved from duty prior to beginning work for the motor carriers.

 

[BigStickJr]

That sounds logical.
Lots of things can/ will be questioned.
It'll be interesting to watch.
Also, curious how Fedex, Panther, and Load One will handle it.

 

[Turtle]

That sounds logical.
Lots of things can/ will be questioned.
It'll be interesting to watch.
Also, curious how Fedex, Panther, and Load One will handle it.

Cargo van drivers who haul HAZMAT every once in a while fall under the "or intermittently" part of the rule above, so a simple statement of hours would suffice. The Qualcomms in the vans of FedEx, Panther and Load One, among others, are already ELDs, it's just that the logging functions are turned off on vans. Turning electronic logging on when a HAZMAT load is dispatched, and then turning it off after delivery, would be the way to handle it. That would satisfy the regulations without being unnecessarily burdensome to drivers when they aren't driving a CMV or are not on the 7 day clock as a CMV driver.

The easy (lazy) way would be to just leaving electronic logging on all the time. That may or may not create additional, non-productive work of those in Safety who have to monitor logbooks for violations. I have heard in the past from people in Safety (at Panther) that they wish cargo vans would have to log just like big truck drivers, because it would make their jobs easier. At Panther it might, because of the wonky 16 hour rule they have for vans. With mandatory logging, I don't know if all vans logging all the time, or even all HAZMAT drivers logging all the time, would make things easier or harder.

 

[BigStickJr]

I would question intermittently if he basically does it full time.
And a good lawyer could really trip up a company rep on a driver who is not a driver, when convenient, although he's driving.

Could be a who's on first style Q&A.