Just looking for some clear info on the new ELD stuff they are putting in place. I have heard alot about it and don't know what all is true.
What specifically is your question? The FMCSA website has a pretty good FAQ page for general questions.
Looking to see how it will effect people in 1 ton type trucks hauling horses and cattle. From what I have been able to gather the "private no for hire"badges don't matter anymore. They are saying (and I was unable to find anything on the fmcsa site) that any time you are hauling live stock for profit you can be fined for not having DOT and ELD and that you will need a cdl.
Look to the FMCSA site, all informing and NO guessing.
There are exceptions to the ELD rule. Read up on them. Unless you're trucking day in day out and exceeding a 100 mile radius from home you won't need one.
And that is 100 AIR miles(nautical), straight line from base so long as you 'Time Card' your time in the machine and have it with you if stopped or questioned. Is also a 150 air mile rule that goes with that.
See, thats where I will get in trouble. I will be traveling all over the midwest and sometimes beyond for events.
My wife barrel races and told me there's been quite a lot of discussion on it on facebook. Type in eld laws there and you'll find a bunch of discussion. She has a CDL and we do have a DOT#, but I haven't looked at it much since she's just competing locally.
If moving interstate you fall into gray areas unless you do not exceed the 150 air miles, do that and get into a DOT inspection you may come up lame.
If you don't leave the radius more than 8 out of 30 days you're exempt. Motor 99 or older exempt. Honestly they're not THAT bad. They're going to slowly eliminate all of the little loopholes people use one way or another. Pay to play.
The only two that were exempt were livestock haulers and apiaries-bee haulers. But very few DOT people ever stop a bee wagon anyway,live hives or not . Truck Shop
I was kinda hoping this whole ELD business would be the 'straw that broke the camel's back' so to speak and everyone would just park them for a week or two. I realize that is just a pipe dream that will probably never happen. It just seems like the trucking industry can never get a break. IT seems like the trucking industry is just a big pissen post for new rules and regulations. God only knows what the govt will come up with next !!!!!
Rules, rules, rules. Thanks for reminding my why I got out of that business. Try 48 state OS/OW, I've got 3-ring binders full of info & provision sheets. It's not the ELD's IMO, it's the Hours of Service regs. I was jawing with a CVEO during an inspection & innocently told him I'd been working on the truck in the shop the night before getting it ready for the trip and got a warning for not logging the time line 4. How's that going to work with the ELD? That 14 hour clock starting & not stopping is the killer. But I digress Registered commercial vehicle operators need the ELD when over the thresholds, but privately registered? I know California has a noncommercial A license for trailers over 15k not used for hire, so it stands to reason under that doesn't need either commercial or noncommercial endorsement thus no ELD. Then there's the Operating Authority to confuse things a little more. If you are required to have a ELD, CDL, DOT# a lot of livestock is an exempt commodity and you don't need operating authority (4H exhibit animals, riding horses) but show & rodeo animals need an MC#.
Try working Nuke power gen. I did for 22 years. Rules for us WAS 16in 24, 24 in 48, 72 in 7 days. That all changed with the latest arrangements. Our big change was minimum Days Off, had to make a certain amount of Off time every 6 weeks, rolling schedule on 12 hour shifts, they tweaked that with STP or Shift Turnover Pay and discrete hours of 'Not Working' for that but every company out there tried pushing the chalk line out each year.
If you haul across state lines, log more than 8 days a month your required to have an ELD device
Not exactly true. Read the 100 and 150 mile rules.
The ELD laws were written, in part, to regulate the grey area people. If your truck has a gvwr over 10,001 you gotta have them. Not if you weigh over that, simply the gvwr will get you there. If the combo of a pickup and trailer gvwr's exceed 10,001 then you need them. That's assuming you leave the radius, run more than 8 days or have a 2000 or newer engine. It bs, but again having done all the legwork for our fleet I can say it's not as bad as it sounds.
OK, I am going against the grain here: I have been around peripherally, (I prep the loads) heavy specialized loads for about 10 years now. We interface with the trucking industry. About two years ago when the talk really started in earnest, I asked a fellow how he felt about ELDs. He owns two trucks and hires 7-8 more trucks depending on the contract load needs and demands. He said that he got on board with ELDs as soon as they came out, he would not hire a truck without ELDs. They actually make better money for him and the contract drivers he uses. He gets more actual miles, no logbook infractions and DOT smiles benignly on him when they see him. Most of his work is in the midwest and west coast. Now, this may be an isolated case, but with all the double booking that goes on and gets caught, I would think honest drivers would prefer the level playing field. It is the DOT cameras that get most people, they feed into a computer and within 2 minutes a scale can reel you in for a violation. I got reeled in driving a log truck part time, for out of date license tabs (by one day.) I got a finger wagging and while I was calling the boss to find out where the tabs were, the scale lady told me they had been bought, so get them on! DOT never caused me any fear, I tried to run right and when they did reel me in I had it coming, but I never had any real major violations, so it was always a finger wagging.
I will admit having been a Funny Paper illustrator in the 80's. Dropped many a logbook into a burn barrel on a jobsite so it could not come back to haunt me while the company we hauled for seemed to Not Care. At one point of one month I looked in my bunk to see 9 partial log books(Funny Papers). Ended up a full day trying to sort it all back to some semblance of reality and took three days off to catch up. In all actuality gained us very little in the long run.
I've been out of a service truck for some years now but I'm wondering about the rules on the wrenches and the huge trucks most are driving now. When I was working for the dealers in the field it was pretty common to be jumping job to job on a trap line for five or six days in a row. I might drive 300 miles in a week and 50 hours work weeks were normal with occasional 70s. In addition to that about every other month would be a flight to Southeast Alaska for a different trap line on the panhandle. So how would this type of scheduling for mechanics be affected if the truck weighed in at say 26,500 pounds? Would it be completely different at 15,000 pounds in a Super Duty?
Nope, either truck would be subject to same rules. The example you use would be legal per hours of service regs. Close but doable. There are allowances for "personal conveyance" as well. Again, if it's within the air radius of main shop then it could potentially be ELD exempt. In a way it's no different than paper logs, you can manipulate the hours especially when truck isn't physically moving.
OK so if I stayed inside state lines and didn't drive past a certain amount of miles from home base then I likely wouldn't need the ELD? Also if I drove to a site, parked the truck and worked there for a week then I wouldn't be subject to the rules?
The rule, and most CMV rules, starts at 10,001 pounds gross vehicle weight rating. I think most, but by no means all, mechanics would fall under an exemption. Oops, junkyard posted first.
Not seen a Mechanic Exemption, commercial truck, commercial license, CDL in driver's possession all strikes as to exempted. Only time not on the ELD would be bending wrenches. Energy Companies are playing with 'Unwritten Clauses' where the field personnel are NOT using the truck in truck service but to drive point A to B(conveyance), then they have a problem when the first piece of anything is laden in the bed, tools, parts, debris then becomes a CDL qualified. Had the argument as to my having a CDL years past, they stated I did not NEED one as NOT hauling anything, then the brown shirts noted Commercial Plates, Corporate name on door, weight rated truck licensed truck not car two plant operators got tickets AND points on license which the company WOULD NOT PAY FOR. They opted to drop us into small machines then whined as we could not haul anything we needed to, they stated WE needed to Know the law and applicability as well were responsible not themselves and left it as that.
Have to fall back to it is a CDL, with a weight rated truck and the laws do not discriminate or exempt for wrenching. The moron linemen I worked with two and a half decades ago had the mentality if the got a DUI/DWI/Points ticket while driving a Car it would NOT affect their Truck License, boy were they wrong. Unless is in specific written guidelines as an exemption it is NOT exempt.
I'm in a grey area, it scares me because of the different jurisdictions I travel through. Some LE may interpret the law differently than the others. IF, I could see some consistency between agencies I'd feel much better. My truck has a GVWR of 33,000 Lb. and the trailer is just over 10,000 Lb.. Combined is over 26,000. Lb. I have a CDL. I don't have a DOT number; it's not required by my state law. Truck and trailer are not licensed commercial and not required by State law. The personal vehicle truck license and registration is current. I have requisite liability insurance. I'm not involved in any commerce, I'm not in business and I don't work for anyone. I can't do IFTA because I don't have a company; a catch 22. I hope LE is satisfied with recent in-State fuel receipts. So what do you think ? Does "Personal conveyance" fit, or am I stretching the ELD exemptions ? I can't get anyone at DOT or FMCSA to answer this question, I've tried. So, what do you think ?
If you don't leave your home state you don't need IFTA. Good luck finding any sort of consistency. ELD is a federal law enforced by state agencies trained to do so. The burden will be on you to prove to them you're not "for hire" should you be stopped. Beyond the gross weight there are other exemptions to ELD, age of engine (1999 and older are exempt) , 8 out of 30 days outside the 100 mile air radius from home. Personal conveyance is simply a way for a vehicle using an ELD to also be used as personal transportation "off the clock" for lack of a better way to put it. How far do you travel? Do you leave the state? What do you use the rig for?
Brown shirts(DOT) around here often are less than conservative in rules reads, they tend to take to the extreme those that can generate income. The Regular Law Enforcement boys do not seem to get all too interested in DOT rules except if lighting or obvious faults are noted as they review the machines. What year is your wagon? Date of build also has some to do with the new rule.
Here's my load: http://www.powerboatlistings.com/view/23817 The truck's a 2002 , I'll check the data plate on the Caterpillar, the engine may be a year or two older, wouldn't that be nice? rules rules rules...Far too many rules, and too many people from different backgrounds with bad attitudes interpreting those rules. A - 1/2 ton P/U could pull my boat, but it's so much safer and handles much better with the large truck and air brakes. The emergency battery in the trailer tongue for the electric over hydraulic brakes appears to work for a potential accidental trailer disconnect. Even with the electric brake controller in the truck, electric trailer brakes normally don't get applied equally with the tractor, so having the extra stopping power from the truck's air brakes provides a safety margin. I move cross country with it, that's where IFTA kicks in. Am I guilty without proof ? .. I don't know how to prove that I don't have a commercial truck. I just wish all branches of LE could apply common sense to "personal conveyance" with consistency. To say that the rule only applies to groceries while "bobtail" and not other personal items is a stretch, or is it ? A new $mall truck that flies under the radar, may avoid fines but would it be cost effective, if I only tow twice a year and don't have other uses for it ?
Pulling a boat for personal use is not a ELD requirement much as use of a Class 7 to pull a RV is not. Was a time when CO required ALL trucks with trailers to weigh Included RVs that all came to a halt as the snowbirds descended on the state and would choke the entry port stations/scales. They will at times weigh RVs and check license but even with a weight plate should they be over all they can do is issue a ticket and release, been in one of those Elk season three years back.
Have a 38K plate on my 26K dump truck, all private use, no commercial. Real easy to run over 26K hauling rock, even easier when pulling backhoe. Would probably have issue with LEO but don't do much hauling or towing and county farm use. Sure would like air brakes
Engine data plate says; 2001.. I almost dodged the bullet. It might be time to trade off my truck on a new one, or just part it out.