A poll question accompanied Overdrive's recent video explainer of some of the intricacies of just how operators can use "personal conveyance" for purely personal uses of the truck and trailer. The question explored recent high-profile calls for a time and/or distance limit in official guidance or regulation for PC, an off-duty status in a logbook and a special mode in an electronic logging device that allows off-duty movement of the truck.
Thanks to all of you who weighed in with the poll. Turns out my hunches about where Overdrive's owner-operator audience might come down on the question of whether such a time/distance limit was appropriate were more or less confirmed. Most readers favored status-quo treatment in terms of guidance around PC use, where carriers have discretion to develop internal policies that limit time and distance for employed or contracted operators. Generally, however, the principal limiting factor in guidance is whether the use of the vehicle is in fact personal in nature.
For independents, that determination is in their control, as it should be, noted independent owner-operator Ernie Cox, commenting on Overdrive's Facebook page: "If I say it’s personal, end of story,."
Yet abuse of the off-duty driving status, enforcement representatives contend, is not hard to find.
In its bid to influence the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration toward agreement with the contention that a time/distance limit is needed, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance began tracking officer-deemed-inappropriate uses of PC with a special coding for so-called false log violations that were a result of faulty PC use. As previously reported, officers noted more than 3,000 such violations since June of 2021 alone.
Some in Overdrive's audience agreed that distance/time limitations might yield some clarity in the enforcement of the rule. That's what CVSA has sought in its petitioning of FMCSA to impose such a limit, already a reality in Canada.
