Again with another (stupid) question

[Gummi-Baer]

Any other truck drivers on here that have to go through the DOT medical card, I have a question. To start off I was told at the start that I have to use my CPAP machine at a minimum 4 hrs per session (or use). Yet I have to show at least 75% use or more to qualify for a 1 year medical card. Here is the long awaited question. Over 10 days I have use my CPAP for 66.75 hrs, averaging 6.675 hrs a day. The lowest use in one was 4 hrs. How do I get the percentage of 75% over that period of time. I am keeping a log of my start/finish times to see if I'm within regulations. How would I calculate that. Just wanting to know and also to see if I'm not being screwed with.

Thank You

[Bama Rambler]

I don't specifically know about the DOT requirement, but most times it's 75% of the days per month used above 4 hours. So that means that you need to use the machine 23 days out of 30 longer than 4 hours per day.

[Pugsy]

If you are inspected the DOT people will want to pull the usage data from the machine itself.
Written logs are (as we all know) too easily falsified. That's how come everyone is going to electronic logs.

What machine do you have? If you could provide software reports from the machine that might be sufficient.

I believe they want a minimum of 4 hours use within a 24/day period. Can't use it for 12 hours and then not for the next 3 days..type of thing. There is a per day out of so many days...that also is part of the requirement but I forget exactly what it might be. DOT regulations as you are in a world of their own. There's more to it than just so many days out of a month...they mainly want proof of use while on the road.

We have a truck driver here who is familiar with the ins and out of the regulations...hopefully he will chime in.

[Gary_UT]

Any other truck drivers on here that have to go through the DOT medical card, I have a question. To start off I was told at the start that I have to use my CPAP machine at a minimum 4 hrs per session (or use). Yet I have to show at least 75% use or more to qualify for a 1 year medical card. Here is the long awaited question. Over 10 days I have use my CPAP for 66.75 hrs, averaging 6.675 hrs a day. The lowest use in one was 4 hrs. How do I get the percentage of 75% over that period of time. I am keeping a log of my start/finish times to see if I'm within regulations. How would I calculate that. Just wanting to know and also to see if I'm not being screwed with.

Thank You

I'm not a truck driver but I do have to have a valid DOT medical card to work.

For compliance you have to use the CPAP machine for a minimum of 4 hours per day for 80% of the days. So in a 30 day period you must have at least 24 days with usage greater than 4 hours. I had to bring a printout from my sleep doctor to prove usage.

Gary

[Gummi-Baer]

Any other truck drivers on here that have to go through the DOT medical card, I have a question. To start off I was told at the start that I have to use my CPAP machine at a minimum 4 hrs per session (or use). Yet I have to show at least 75% use or more to qualify for a 1 year medical card. Here is the long awaited question. Over 10 days I have use my CPAP for 66.75 hrs, averaging 6.675 hrs a day. The lowest use in one was 4 hrs. How do I get the percentage of 75% over that period of time. I am keeping a log of my start/finish times to see if I'm within regulations. How would I calculate that. Just wanting to know and also to see if I'm not being screwed with.

Thank You

I'm not a truck driver but I do have to have a valid DOT medical card to work.

For compliance you have to use the CPAP machine for a minimum of 4 hours per day for 80% of the days. So in a 30 day period you must have at least 24 days with usage greater than 4 hours. I had to bring a printout from my sleep doctor to prove usage.

Gary

Thank You for the response. I have been keeping a log to to the best of my ability. Can't wait until I can retire so I can get away from those regulations, don't get me wrong I'll still use it if medically needed.