Personal Conveyance ELD 2026: Legal Uses, Limits & Red Flags

What Personal Conveyance Means

FMCSA allows personal conveyance when the driver is off-duty and using the CMV for personal reasons. The ELD records PC as a special driving category tied to off-duty. It does not add legal drive hours for load movements. Tie this to 14-hour reality — PC will not save a blown window for a delivery.

Examples Often Treated as Personal

Misuse Red Flags

PC vs Yard Moves

Yard moves are typically on-duty movements inside a yard — different ELD category. Learn yard moves explained. Mixing PC and yard move labels to hide work is an audit gift to investigators.

The Test Is Purpose, Not a Mile Number You Heard

Personal conveyance is a special driving category in 49 CFR 395.28. It is off duty. It is the use of a commercial motor vehicle for your own reasons while you are relieved from work. It is not a way to move the load, and it is not a way to put the truck where the carrier wants it for the next dispatch. FMCSA's guidance does not set a federal mile cap. A number you heard, 25 miles or 50, is a company rule or an old proposal, not the regulation. The test is purpose. If the purpose is personal, the guidance allows the move whether the truck is empty or loaded. If the purpose is the motor carrier's business, it is on-duty driving no matter how short it is. Your company can ban personal conveyance, can forbid it while loaded, or can set a mile limit stricter than FMCSA. The stricter rule is the one you follow. The federal guidance is the floor they cannot go below by calling a work move personal. It is not a club you use against your own fleet policy.

Moves that fit are the ordinary ones. From a hotel or a truck stop to a restaurant and back. From the terminal to your home after you are released from duty, and back when you are truly going home rather than starting a trip. To a safe place to rest after you have been unassigned, when you are not positioning for a pickup the carrier has already given you. The annotation should say where you went and why, in words that still make sense to an auditor. From the shipper to a truck stop to sleep can be personal if you are done for the day and you are not advancing the load toward its destination or toward the next shipper. The same miles, if they shorten tomorrow's deadhead so you can make a pickup, are work. The ELD will show the miles either way. The story has to match the trace.

Moves that do not fit are the ones that keep freight on schedule. Bobtailing or deadheading toward the next shipper so you are closer in the morning is positioning, and positioning is on duty. Continuing a dispatch after you have run out of hours is driving, not personal conveyance. Using personal conveyance to commute around an out-of-service order is not allowed, except for the specific move the order itself permits, such as to the nearest safe place when that is what the order says. A yard move is a different button: on duty, not driving, and only on private property. Personal conveyance is off duty and can be on a public road because it is personal. Do not swap the names because one button still has hours and the other does not. The comparison is on yard moves.

Off duty means the time counts as off duty, including toward a 10-hour break, only if it really is off duty. A personal-conveyance move in the middle of a 34-hour restart is the move an auditor will reread. If they decide it was work, the restart breaks. If you are not sure, do not move the truck. Fuel, a trailer slide, and any other on-duty task are not personal conveyance and will break the restart on their own. The 14-hour window and the 11-hour driving limit do not apply to a true personal-conveyance move because you are not driving on duty. They apply the moment the purpose is work. You do not get to choose the label that saves the appointment. The appointment has to fit the on-duty clocks on the 14-hour rule and the 11-hour driving limit.

Turn the status on only for the personal move, and turn it off when the personal move is over. Leaving it on while you start the trip is a false log with road miles attached. Annotate in the moment. If your carrier's policy is tighter than the guidance, follow the policy and keep a copy of it in the truck. An officer who knows the guidance and a safety director who wrote a 30-mile rule can both be right: the guidance says what is legal, and the policy says what this company allows. Violating the policy can cost the job even when the move was legal. Violating the guidance can cost the log. The question to ask before you roll is simple. If I were not trying to help this load, this carrier, or tomorrow's pickup, would I still be moving the truck? If the answer is no, it is not personal conveyance.

Write the purpose in the annotation the way you would explain it to someone who was not there. Dinner and back to the truck stop. Home from the yard after I was released. Not heading toward the morning pickup, and not a shorter deadhead. If you cannot write that sentence without mentioning the load, the customer, or tomorrow's dispatch, do not use the status. Officers compare the trace to the words. A personal-conveyance line that ends at a shipper is the pattern they are trained to see. End the move where the personal errand ended. Start on-duty driving only when the work actually starts. The button is not a cushion for a dispatch that was planned too tight. Fix the dispatch.

Carriers should say the rule out loud in orientation, in one paragraph a driver can repeat. Personal conveyance is off duty and personal. It is not for the load and not for the next pickup. Yard moves stay inside the gate and stay on duty. Mile limits, if the company has them, are company limits and they still do not make a work move legal. Drivers who hear that once will still make mistakes. Drivers who never hear it will make the mistake every Friday when the appointment is tight. Put it on the trip sheet. The ELD already has the button. The button without the sentence is how the violation gets recorded in the company's own device.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related: 14-hour rule, 11-hour driving limit, 34-hour reset, adverse driving conditions, yard moves ELD.

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