§ 395.24 states the driver’s side of the arrangement in one line before it lists anything: a driver must provide the information the device requires as prompted by it and as required by the motor carrier. The rest is that principle itemised. The duty status is the driver’s to set — off duty, sleeper berth (only where one is used), driving, or on-duty not driving — selected from the categories the device offers. Some information the driver must input manually: annotations where applicable, the location description when the device prompts for it, and an output file comment when an authorized safety official directs one. Other information the driver must input OR VERIFY, which is the more easily missed obligation because the device usually offers a value already: the power unit number, the trailer numbers where there are any, and the shipping document number where there is one. Verifying is a duty in the same sentence as inputting; accepting a prefilled figure without looking is not a lesser version of it.

The fourth duty is the one that happens at the roadside. On request by an authorized safety official, § 395.24(d) requires the driver to produce and transfer their hours-of-service records from the device — in accordance with the instruction sheet the motor carrier provided. Note where the instructions come from. The rule does not expect the driver to know every transfer method in the abstract; it expects the carrier to have supplied the sheet and the driver to have it and follow it. A driver who has never opened that sheet discovers its contents during an inspection, which is the worst moment to read anything.

§ 395.36 then runs the duty the other way, and it is worth knowing because it is the only place in this chapter where the rule protects the driver rather than the record. Drivers must be able to access their own electronic records, and a carrier must not introduce a process that would require a driver to go through the carrier to obtain copies of records that exist on, or are automatically retrievable through, the device the driver operates. For records not available that way, the carrier must on request give the driver access to and copies of their own records, throughout the period the carrier is required to retain them — the 6 months § 8.1 set out. Your log is a document you certified as true and correct, and this section makes sure it does not become a document only your employer can see.