Some More Clarification on Air Miles maps

We get a lot of questions here at Air Miles Maps Online regarding the finer points of the Federal Motor carrier Safety Administration rules for so-called “short haul” or “local” log book (RODS) exemptions.  It’s always best to go to the source:

http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/truck/driver/hos/hos-faqs.asp
C-2 What is an "air mile"?
The term "air-mile" is internationally defined as a "nautical mile" which is
equivalent to 6,076 feet. Thus, the 100 air-miles are equivalent to 115.08
statute miles, and 150 air-miles are equivalent to 172.6 statute miles.

Most operators and drivers reading here are OTR drivers and do not operate under the 100 air
mile log book exemption. But for some, this can be a very important exemption for improving your bottom line by eliminating a lot of paperwork requirements.

Remember, this air mile log book exemption doesn’t measure how many miles it takes to drive from A to B, it only measures the straight-line distance, or as the crow flies", from A to B.
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There are many drivers that think once you cross a state’s border, that is to say become interstate, you cannot use the 100 air mile exemption.  That’s not true, that rule went away quite a few years ago.  Here are the requirements for using the 100 air mile log book exemption:

100 air-mile radius exemption:

A driver is exempt from maintaining the driver’s daily log requirements of Section 395.8 if all of the following are true:
   a.. The driver operates within a 100 air-mile radius of the normal work reporting location.
   b.. The driver returns to the work reporting location and is released from work within 12 consecutive hours.
   c.. Each 12 hours on duty are separated by at least:
      a.. 10 consecutive hours off duty for property-carrying drivers, or
      b.. 8 consecutive hours off duty for passenger-carrying drivers.
      d.. The driver does not exceed a maximum of:
         a.. 11 hours driving time following 10 consecutive hours off duty for property-carrying drivers, or
         b.. 10 hours driving time following 8 consecutive hours off duty for passenger-carrying drivers.
      e.. The motor carrier that employs the driver maintains and retains for a period of six months accurate and true   time records that show:
         a.. The time the driver reports for duty each day;
         b.. The total number of hours the driver is on duty each day;
         c.. The time the driver is released from duty each day; and
         d.. The total time for the preceding 7 days for first-time or intermittent drivers.

This really seems pretty important to me, now that we are heading into the last quarter of the year and a (hopefully) very busy holiday season … this will help get those store deliveries out there in the shortest time and the lowest possible cost via the use of an Air Miles Map.

Why You Need an Air Miles Map

There are a number of reasons you might need an air mile radius map to keep your business legal, more efficient, or both.  A primary reason for many clients are the FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) rules regarding driver hours of service rules.  I’ve written about them before and I’ll likely write more, but here’s a very useful site I found that explains a lot more than I’ll ever know:

Trucking Compliance, LLC™ is a small business helping small trucking companies to startup, grow, and stay legal. Nothing fancy. Just an easy, direct way for people to start their own trucking or motorcoach businesses.

     OUR MISSION is to help you Get Your Federal OPERATING AUTHORITY, establish and maintain required DOCUMENTATION, PASS Federal Inspections, and KEEP MORE of the MONEY that YOU EARN.

Richard Dowdell is the founder and brains behind this site which is what we “Web guru” guys call a “very tightly niched” business.  90% or more of the traffic online just ebbs and flows from site to site, reading little and absorbing less, looking for the next free ring tone or whatever else the trend of the day is … but included in the either 10% are the people making American work.

A huge percentage of the ‘work’ involves wheels in one way or another, and if there are wheels involved there’s an excellent chance state or federal government is involved.  You know what that means.  paperwork on top of paperwork …. and after you have it all complete, you really don’t know if you even used the right forms for sure.

That’s Trucking Compliance’s “narrow” but important niche … keeping vehicles on the road legally so that commerce can flow.  I’m not even in the transportation business directly and I already have learned from Richard’s site … you will too.