With personal conveyance, how long and how far, CVSA asks

April 5, 2022

•

Just how long and how far can a commercial motor vehicle driver go on “personal conveyance?”

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance has asked those questions of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in a letter dated March 29.

CVSA is a nonprofit association comprised of local, state, provincial, territorial and federal commercial motor vehicle safety officials and industry representatives. It is widely known in the industry for organizing inspection and enforcement blitzes, such as International Roadcheck (scheduled for May 17-19), Operation Safe Driver (scheduled for July 10-16), and Brake Safety Week (scheduled for Aug. 21-27).

FMCSA has issued guidance for claiming the use of the provision in recording hours of service:

“A driver may record time operating a (commercial motor vehicle) for personal conveyance (i.e., for personal use or reasons) as off-duty only when the driver is relieved from work and all responsibility for performing work by the motor carrier. The CMV may be used for personal conveyance even if it is laden, since the load is not being transported for the commercial benefit of the carrier at that time. Personal conveyance does not reduce a driver’s or motor carrier’s responsibility to operate a CMV safely. Motor carriers can establish personal conveyance limitations either within the scope of, or more restrictive than, this guidance, such as banning use of a CMV for personal conveyance purposes, imposing a distance limitation on personal conveyance, or prohibiting personal conveyance while the CMV is laden.”

CVSA said in its letter that the FMCSA guidance is incomplete because it does not provide a maximum distance and/or time that a driver can travel under the provision.

That “adversely affects safety by allowing drivers to utilize personal conveyance to legally drive many hours beyond the hours-of-service limits and by making it difficult for inspectors to identify the misuse of the provision,” according to the CVSA letter signed by Collin B. Mooney, CMSA executive director.

In theory, under the current guidance a driver could drive hundreds of miles over the course of several hours all under the designation of personal conveyance, CVSA explained in its letter.

Not only could drivers intentionally misuse the provision to conceal hours driven, but drivers could unintentionally misuse it because the definition and guidance are unclear, CVSA wrote.

CVSA previously petitioned FMCSA to make this change in December 2018. FMCSA denied the petition in September 2020. FMCSA said its 2018 regulatory guidance was appropriate considering the available data.

“While we acknowledge the CVSA’s concerns, we do not believe there is a sufficient safety basis for initiating a rulemaking,” FMCSA wrote. “The agency is unable to estimate the extent to which drivers may be circumventing the hours-of-service requirements by claiming personal conveyance status, or to the extent to which drivers’ violations result in safety-critical events.” LL