Hi all.
Our Texas company's 2003 Dodge Ram 2500 was involved in an accident in New York State. No one was injured in the accident, but what happened after the accident while transporting our pickup truck in Cleveland, Ohio still bothers me to this day. October 31, 2023 evening, a severe snowstorm began in Cleveland. The DOT inspector, instead of getting me through Cleveland in good weather, put me out of service for 10 hours, during which time I was caught in a snowstorm. I wrote an appeal about this incident and want to hear the opinion of respected lawyers and drivers. Here is part of my appeal.
October 30, 2023, I loaded our pickup truck onto our trailer and drove it home to Texas, hooking the trailer to a Ford F150 I had tooken by carsharing app Turo. Our company signs with DOT and MS numbers were still on the doors of our pickup truck Dodge Ram and were clearly visible.
I planned to drive from New York State to Texas as safely as possible, driving only during the day and in good weather. The next day, October 31, 2023, in the morning the weather could be called favorable for driving a car, but in the afternoon it began to snow lightly. When I reached the city of Cleveland, Ohio, I was stopped by an DOT officer. I told the officer that I had slept well and felt great. Slept on the rest area from October 30 to 31, 2023 and started moving at 10 am. Was stopped by an DOT officer by 2 pm and therefore traveled no more than 6 hours in total from the loading site.
Not far from Cleveland, a 30-minute break was taken at the rest area where photographs were taken 36 minutes before the start of the recording of the report. The officer demanded to show him the look book, medical certificate, as well as registration documents and insurance for the car I was driving. But I couldn’t show the lookbook because I didn’t keep notes in the lookbook. I replied that I do not do commercial transportation, but transport my own equipment and therefore cannot be considered a carrier. I spent the night at the rest area and after I had a good rest, I started moving at 10 o’clock in the morning. The distance from the place where our equipment was loaded, that is, from the place where the movement began to the place where the DOT officer stopped, was 383 miles, and the navigator determined the total travel time to be less than 6 hours. The officer also pointed out to me that there was no visible DOT, MS numbers and company sign. In response, I opened the Turo application on my mobile phone and showed all the documents requested by the officer for the car I was driving. I said that the phone contains all the information he asks for. The officer took the phone from my hands and scrolled the images with the Turo app open up and down for 3-4 seconds and then handed it back to me. I did not notice that the officer began to look at my phone for commercial insurance and other documents photographs of which were on the phone. He just asked where I came from. During the conversation, I could not remember the name of the locality and therefore replied that I had picked up my equipment from the state of New York from a towing company near the city of Elmira. The officer did not demand to name the exact loading location. Then at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon the officer ordered me to follow him and led me under the bridge where he handed me a violation report. I recorded the presentation of the protocol of violations under the bridge on my mobile phone for a better understanding of everything that the officer told me. The officer listed my violations and told me that I could not leave this place for 10 hours due to the lack of a medical certificate. In response, I objected that I did not consider myself a carrier; I had already shown all the documents requested by the officer on my mobile phone. Although by that time I had given the officer my mobile phone with pictures of documents, the officer said that I refused to show him these documents. Then I turned off the video recording, opened my medical certificate in my phone and handed it to the officer. The officer looked at the phone with the medical certificate open for at least one minute, scrolled up and down the image several times and zoomed in and out, after which he handed me back my phone and then drove away without comment. I could not find on the official website fmcsa.dot.gov any information requiring limiting the driver’s driving time during personal trips. That is, there is no limit to the maximum distance or time during which a driver can use personal transport. Although off-duty drivers should get adequate rest, there is no specific time for rest or driving time.
To be continued
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