Asked to drive toward load under personal conveyance with low DOT clock

I was sent on a long run well outside of my normal driving area. I was asked on the return trip to pick up two loads and split drop them with other drivers at locations that were more or less on the way back to the company terminal where I park the truck. The first load was required tarping which took a bit extra time but I made it to the first split drop Friday night. However, at this point I only had about 8 hours left on my 70 clock. The trip to pick up the next load was about 3 hours, then there would have been at least 45 minutes of fixing the tarps and strapping and whatnot because this particular plant always does a pretty poor job of packaging, and then about 5 hours to the split drop. Switching trailers wouldn't have taken very long but there was still another hour to get back to the terminal.

Now I've only changed careers and gotten into trucking about 10 months ago but the company I choose right out of school said they would try to get their drivers home every weekend. Thus far my schedule has proven to be leave on mid to late Sunday and get back mid to late Friday. Maybe once a month I would get a series of loads that dragged into Saturday before I got back to the terminal. Not once in my 10 months had I been asked to stay out for my 34 anywhere.

Instead of asking me to do that, my driver manager suggested I leave out Saturday morning as though I was using the truck as a personal conveyance, and after a couple of hours switch to regular on duty time so that the 8 hours I had left would have been enough to get the load, do the split drop, and get back to the terminal.

My question is, was that suggestion OK? I didn't end up doing it but if anything had happened on this portion of the trip would I have been in trouble with the DOT? After thinking more about being asked to do this I feel like it was a little hinky...I'm not trying to be some road lawyer but I do wonder why they didn't just ask me to take my 34 away from home for the first time.

 

The DM never asked me to do my 34 in the truck, and I think your right, he was technically trying to find a way to both get me home and get this one last load out of me for the week. I’ve deadheaded back to the terminal similar distances in the past so I don’t know why he was trying so hard to get me to do this one. My question was more about, if I had done it, would I have actually been in violation of some of rule.

 

Moving to another company had already been in the works for the past couple of weeks so it was easy to just head to the terminal and clean out the truck.