Dear Marc, after reading the blog, “Are drivers required to show when they stop for fuel on their BigRoad driver logs?” I am wondering about flagging every on/off duty switch. If the driver is loading, unloading, or resting, do we need to mark that in the notes section? Do we need to note 30-minute breaks, or can we note that we were off duty 30 minutes?
Question submitted from one of our readers, Kevin B. Thanks, Kevin!
Dear Reader,
Every change in the duty status in the U.S., including what the specific duty status is at any given time, has to be indicated on a daily log to reflect what a driver was doing during a workday.
That being said, FMCSA has granted some flexibility on how changes of duty status for a short period of time can be shown on the driver’s record of duty status. Essentially, short periods of time (less than 15 minutes) may be identified by drawing a line from the appropriate on-duty (not driving) or driving line to the remarks section and entering the amount of time, such as “6 minutes,” and the geographic location of the duty status change.
In terms of how should multiple short stops in a town or city be recorded on a record of duty status, all stops made in any one city, town, village or municipality may be computed as one. In such cases the sum of all stops should be shown on a continuous line as on-duty (not driving). In addition, the aggregate driving time between such stops should be entered on the record of duty status immediately following the on-duty (not driving) entry. The name of the city, town, village, or municipality, followed by the State abbreviation where all the stops took place, must appear in the “remarks” section of the record of duty status in order to comply with Part 395 in these instances.
Hope this helps!
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