Heller: Another year ends with unanswered personal conveyance questions

I can prepare some dishes that taste great, but I would never classify my cooking as anything close to gourmet. So, I eat out way too often, and when I do, I prefer to pick up the food from the restaurant myself and bring it home, likely because I believe it will taste better than if I had to wait for it to be delivered.

Looking at this from a trucking perspective, I realize that any time I go out to grab dinner, it would be construed as personal conveyance since it falls outside the realm of my work life, so to speak. As someone who sits at a desk or walks to Capitol Hill, my assimilation to hours of service is different from that of professional truck drivers. However, I cannot help but sympathize with them regarding the ambiguity of the personal conveyance aspect of the rule.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration defines personal conveyance as the movement of a commercial motor vehicle for personal use while off-duty. Seems fairly straightforward to the common person, but it gets more complex. There is some ambiguity when looking at the examples of appropriate uses of a CMV for personal conveyance while off-duty.  Example No. 3 cites that time spent traveling to a nearby, reasonable, safe location to obtain rest after loading or unloading certainly lends itself to quite the conundrum.

As an adjective, the dictionary defines reasonable as having sound judgment or fair and sensible. That becomes the very issue that we are talking about here. In the vastness of our driving population or even those in the trucking industry, the word reasonable may vary from person to person. It may mean something entirely different to those conducting a compliance review.

Clearly, our professional driving population should have the ability to grab a sandwich or hot meal so they can eat well while on their journey, but the ambiguity of such language is preventing that from happening. Based on the position that has been adopted, many have prohibited personal conveyance as part of their practices. 

See also: 10 things to know about personal conveyance

The topic perplexes everyone, even instructors from the North American Transportation Management Institute, who have sounded the alarm as more question what is reasonable during their certification classes—defining aspects of reasonable continues to reap confusion among those in our industry who seek to have their professional drivers achieve the comforts of home while living life on the road.

FMCSA has twice denied the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance formal petitions seeking a revised rulemaking to add time or mileage maximums to curb improper, even illegal, use of conveyance policy intended for such reasons as drivers making it home to see their family, finding a restaurant or hotel, or being told to move their vehicle by a law enforcement officer.

We get it. Advancing the load under the guise of personal conveyance is a no-no. CVSA has undoubtedly pointed out examples where drivers could, in theory, drive hundreds of miles over several hours under FMCSA's guidance regarding personal conveyance. Certainly, this example may be extreme, but it clearly illustrates increasing driver fatigue and a high level of risk on our roadways.

But FMCSA needs to redefine what personal conveyance means. Because of the ambiguity surrounding this issue, many carriers—erring on the side of caution—disallow it altogether. Placing time or mileage limits within the rule itself could lend more clarity to a rule that is often questioned along the lines of what is right or wrong.

Understandably, a major concern is abusing a rule that defines a driver’s day. However, the lack of clarity surrounding the rule limits drivers from obtaining the comforts of home while traveling on the road.

Placing limits in either time or mileage could go a long way toward providing professional drivers with more consistent guidance on what defines a reasonable amount of personal conveyance. Providing, of course, that drivers are not using it to get a meal cooked by me since I must admit, it would not be worth their personal time in the first place.