The conversations continue from contract drivers who read in their monthly log letters that they have been guilty of “speeding”.
Let’s clear the air on this subject: The MTI log audit system identifies a driver who averages more than 60 mph as a “speeder”. There are two reasons for this: (1) the USDOT believes that commercial drivers cannot average more than 55 mph lawfully, and (2) to audit for the actual speed limits in each state, drivers would have to log every date and time they cross a state line. Because this is burdensome, and has the potential to be full of error, our company policy is to apply a single, reasonable speed limit.
Generally a notice of speeding should not be a worry; however, if what has been labeled as speeding is an average speed of 125 mph – give or take – the system is working as intended: that is, it has caught you lying in your log book: showing a trip from NYC to Chicago took only 2 hours or some such silly invention, designed to give you more hours to run than the law allows. In short, the speeding rule exists to catch the driver who is deliberately falsifying his log book. If this is not you, you have nothing to worry about.
