CETUS PROUnassigned driving
Any driving the device recorded with nobody logged in gets found and either assigned to the right driver or annotated with the reason — yard moves, a mechanic, a repositioning.
A clean log is a planned log
Violations are almost never a driver deciding to break the rules. They are a load that was never legal to begin with, accepted by somebody who did not check the clock first. We check it first — and we review every record of duty status the day after it is certified.
Record of duty status — 24-hour graph grid
Within all limits Duty status line
- Off duty
- 7:00
- Sleeper berth
- 6:00
- Driving
- 9:30
- On duty, not driving
- 1:30
Illustration of a compliant day: 9h30 driving against the 11-hour limit, last driving at the 11th hour of the 14-hour window, break taken before the eighth cumulative driving hour. Not live customer data.
What happens to your logs every day
Software records the day. Somebody still has to read it. That is the part carriers skip and the part auditors look at.
Form and manner
Missing shipping documents, trailer numbers, co-driver details and blank annotations get flagged. These are the cheap violations that make a file look careless.
Edits and certification
Proposed edits go to the driver for acceptance — never applied over their head. Uncertified days get chased before they age out of usefulness.
Clock check
Recap of the 60 or 70-hour cycle, and where the restart lands, so tomorrow's dispatch is built on hours that actually exist.
Filed
The record and its supporting documents go into your folder, kept for the retention period and openable by you without asking us for it.
What is included
Setup, review, planning, paperwork
The whole compliance side of the operation, handled by people who read logs for a living rather than by a dashboard nobody opens.
- Device setup, pairing, driver accounts and training on your chosen ELD
- Daily records review for unassigned driving and form-and-manner errors
- Edit proposals sent to the driver for certification, never applied silently
- HOS planning around the 11, the 14, the break and the cycle
- Sleeper-berth splits planned before the load is accepted, not at the dock
- Malfunction procedure run the same way every time
- DVIR handling and defect follow-up with your maintenance provider
- Mileage by state and quarter kept IFTA-ready throughout
- Inspection reports read the same day they land
- DataQ challenges prepared with evidence where a record is wrong
- Clearinghouse queries tracked so the annual query is never missed
- Audit pack assembled on request if you are selected for a review
The clocks, in the order they bite
Four limits run at once. Most drivers know all four; the ones that cause trouble are the two that run while the truck is standing still.
11-hour driving limit
A driver may drive up to 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty. It is the limit everyone knows and the one that is rarely broken, because the device counts it down in front of the driver all day.
14-hour window
Driving is not permitted beyond the 14th consecutive hour after coming on duty. This is the one that catches people. It does not stop for loading, it does not stop for fuel, and it does not stop while a receiver keeps the truck at a dock for four hours.
A driver can finish the day with three hours of driving time left on the 11 and no legal way to use it, because the 14 ran out first. Everything we do about detention exists because detention is the most expensive thing that can happen to this clock.
30-minute break
Required once eight cumulative hours of driving have passed without an interruption of at least thirty minutes. We put it in the plan at a place with real parking rather than leaving the driver to solve it on a shoulder at hour seven and fifty.
60/70-hour cycle
Sixty hours across seven days, or seventy across eight, depending on how your operation runs. The trap is arithmetic: a driver can be legal on every single day of the week and still arrive at Thursday with four hours available and a load booked that needs nine.
We watch the recap ahead of the week and use the 34-hour restart as a deliberate decision — timed to land where the truck is going to sit anyway, not called in a panic after the hours have already gone.
Sleeper-berth splits
The tool that rescues an awkward appointment time. A qualifying pair — one period of at least seven consecutive hours in the sleeper, plus a second of at least two hours off duty or in the sleeper, adding up to at least ten — means neither period counts against the 14-hour window.
The important part is that it is decided before the load is accepted and the driver is told. A split discovered at midnight, at a dock, by a tired driver, is not a plan.
General information about federal hours-of-service and ELD rules as we apply them in daily dispatch. It is not legal advice, and rules change. Your operation may fall under an exemption or a state variation — we confirm which apply to you during onboarding, in writing.
When the device fails
Devices fail, the regulation expects it, and a carrier is judged on the procedure rather than the failure. We run the same checklist every time, so there is never a decision to make at the roadside.
Step 1
Driver notes it
Written notice of the malfunction to the carrier, on the day it happens. This is the piece most carriers cannot produce afterwards.
Step 2
Reconstruct
The current day and the previous seven get rebuilt on paper graph grids from whatever records exist, so the file has no gap.
Step 3
Paper until fixed
The driver continues on paper logs. Blank grids stay in the truck for exactly this reason, not as an afterthought.
Step 4
Repair inside eight days
The carrier has eight days to repair or replace the unit. If more time is genuinely needed, we prepare the extension request to the field administrator.
Devices we work with
If it is on the FMCSA registered list, we can work with it. We ask for read access to your existing account rather than selling you hardware, because we do not sell hardware.
Hardwired units
Connected to the diagnostic port with a dedicated display. The most common setup and the simplest to support at an inspection.
Phone and tablet based
A port module paired to the driver's device. Convenient, and the setup where we most often find unassigned driving from a dropped pairing.
Telematics-integrated
ELD logging inside a larger fleet platform. We work in your portal rather than asking you to run a second system alongside it.
Removed from the register
When FMCSA revokes a device, carriers get a defined window to replace it. We watch the list and tell you before it becomes your problem.
Records
Ready before anyone asks
An audit is only frightening when the paperwork has to be assembled from scratch. Kept properly throughout, it is a folder you already have.
- Records of duty status and supporting documents held for the retention period
- Supporting documents matched to the day they belong to, not dumped in a pile
- Mileage by state and quarter, so IFTA is a review rather than a reconstruction
- Inspection reports filed, including the clean ones — they matter to your record
- Data transfer method confirmed and tested, so it works at the roadside
- Your own access to all of it, without going through us to get a copy
One thing we will not do
We do not edit driver logs to hide driving time, and we will not take on a carrier who asks us to. A record of duty status belongs to the driver, edits require the driver's certification, and falsified records are what turn a routine roadside inspection into an out-of-service order and an intervention. Where a record is genuinely wrong, we prepare a DataQ challenge with evidence instead — which works, and does not put your authority at risk.
ELD and log book questions
The main exemptions are drivers operating within the short-haul air-mile radius who return to their reporting location inside the allowed window, drivers who keep records of duty status on eight days or fewer in any thirty-day period, driveaway-towaway operations where the vehicle is the commodity, and vehicles with an engine model year older than 2000. We confirm in writing which, if any, applies to your operation during onboarding rather than leaving you to guess.
Only inside an exemption, or during a device malfunction while the unit is being repaired or replaced. Paper is the fallback the rule builds in, not a choice you can make because the ELD is inconvenient. Blank graph grids should be in the truck before you need them.
Six months for records of duty status and their supporting documents. The supporting documents are the part carriers lose — bills of lading, fuel and toll receipts, dispatch records — and they are exactly what an investigator compares your logs against.
The driver transfers the record electronically by the method the device supports, or shows the display or a printout if transfer fails. The instruction sheet, the user manual, the malfunction procedure and blank paper grids must be in the vehicle. We check that pack is complete at setup, because an officer finding it missing is a violation on its own.
Yes, and it accumulates quietly. Every segment recorded with nobody logged in has to be reviewed and either assigned to the driver who drove it or annotated with a reason. Left alone for months it becomes a pattern that looks, to an investigator, exactly like somebody driving off the record.
We propose corrections; the driver accepts or rejects them. That is how the rule works and it is also the only version that protects you. We do not alter driving time, and we will not work with a carrier who wants us to.
It is the FMCSA process for challenging information on your safety record. It is worth filing when a violation was recorded against the wrong carrier or driver, when the underlying facts are demonstrably wrong, or when a citation was later dismissed. It is not worth filing to argue about something that happened. We prepare it with the documents attached, which is the difference between a challenge that succeeds and one that gets closed in a week.
Send us one week of logs
We will read them and tell you what an investigator would notice — unassigned driving, uncertified days, missing annotations, a recap heading for a wall on Thursday. Fifteen minutes, whether or not you end up working with us.
+1 732 387 7777Compliance deskinfo@cetuspro.proEmail24 hours, Monday to SundayDesk hoursTruck dispatching servicesRelated