New Hours of Service Rules

New Hours of Service rules became effective on the 29th of September, 2020. These changes were introduced by the FMCSA to help provide commercial drivers with additional hours of service flexibility as they struggled with the adoption of ELDs.

Two of the most important are changes to the adverse driving conditions exception and additional options for drivers to split their rest time in the sleeper berth. Here’s a brief overview of the changes to each of these FMCSA hours of service regulations.

New Hours of Service Rules: Adverse Driving Conditions

Previously, drivers have been granted an exception to the 10 or 11 hour driving limit when they encounter unforeseeable adverse driving conditions.

This new hours of service rules flexibility will allow a driver to extend their duty day by up to two hours when these adverse conditions are experienced as well.

Now, when a driver encounters unforseen adverse driving conditions , they will be able to increase both their 11 hour driving limit and 14 hour clocks by up to two hours. So, that’s a pretty big deal!

For example, say that a driver’s 20 miles from their destination, and there’s a bad accident on a bridge. (Of course that bridge is the only way to get to the actual destination that they’re trying to get to).

If the driver only has one hour left of their driving time and one hour left in their duty day, the driver can now extend both clocks by switching their ELD into adverse driving conditions duty status and documenting the event without violating the hours of service rules.

The only word of caution I would add, though, is to make sure that if you do experience adverse conditions, that the driver should automatically annotate or make comments on their ELD device.

This is very important! If a law enforcement officer pulls you over or you’re waived in at a scale house, the officer will be able to see the situation and say, “Oh, well, you didn’t violate your hours of service duty day.

This is what the situation was, you’re actually driving under the adverse driving conditions exception.”

The FMCSA clarified what they considered to be adverse driving conditions a bit more.

Previously the adverse driving conditions definition simply included if you encounter snow, ice, sleet, fog, or any other adverse weather conditions or unusual road or traffic conditions that weren’t previously known to the person dispatching the run at the time when it started, then that would be considered adverse driving condition.

Now, the FMCSA has adjusted that definition to now include:

snow, ice, sleet, fog, or other adverse driving weather conditions or unusual road or traffic conditions, just as it was previously, but they are thrown on “where it’s going to be that were not known or could not reasonably known to both the driver immediately prior to beginning the duty day or immediately driving before the last qualifying rest break or sleeper berth period, or a motor carrier immediately prior to dispatching the driver”.

So, they giveth and taketh away a little bit. So they give with a potential two hour extension, both driving limit time and the duty day extension, but at the same time too, they’re coming back and limiting a little bit and saying, “Hey, you have to add the driver in there too, instead of just the motor carrier or whoever was doing the dispatching previously.”

A driver can simply document the adverse condition encountered and can take the exception, but you have to make sure that those conditions weren’t known immediately before they started driving.

New Hours of Service Rules: Split Sleeper Berth Flexibility

Now let’s talk about the final set of major HOS changes that came down the pike in 2020. The last set of changes are to the sleeper berth provision.

Previously drivers were allowed to take an 8/2 sleeper berth split, which means that they could take a two hour off duty break period and then drive, but then come back and have eight hours combination and sleeper berth to make the 10 hour total rest period that they had to have before they could start driving again.

Now, the FMCSA has come out and said that you now have the new option for a 7/3 split, so you now have a 2/8 split or 8/2 split, or a 3/7 or 7/3 split, however you want to look at it.

These sleeper berth provisions were okay and they applied and help some drivers, but at the end of the day, it really wasn’t that big of a help because a driver couldn’t extend both his drive clock and his total on-duty clock.

So, the really big deal about these major HOS changes is that the FMCSA is coming out, and saying that neither of these two qualifying break periods will count towards the 14 hour on-duty window.

So I’ll repeat that again, just so we’re clear about what this is. So the new sleeper berth revision gives you a option to take either 8/2 split, so two hour rest break followed by eight hours in the sleeper berth, or a three hour continuous break with another seven hours in the sleeper berth.

So again, the two rest periods have equal 10 hours, so that doesn’t change. You still have to have 10 hours of total rest before you get your full 14 hours of on duty time again.

But, the most important part of this is that now neither of those qualifying rest periods count towards your 14 hour duty day window.

For example, say a driver is stuck at a shipping location or a consignee’s location and it takes a while to get unloaded.

If the driver knows that they’re going to be there for awhile, they can drive to the shipper’s location and then immediately say, okay, if you’re going to get stuck in the lot, you know you’re going to be there awhile, you can stop and turn your clock off, immediately go into the sleeper berth or into “Off-Duty” status and have a nice two to three hour break, depending on how long they’re going to be there.

Once the driver completes that break period, they can get back on the road and start driving again with however many hours they previously had left on both their driving and duty day clocks.

So this is kind of a different situation entirely. Now with that extra ability to extend the driving or the on-duty day a little bit longer, it’s going to be a lot more advantageous in some situations to take this 8/2 split or 7/3 split depending on the situation.

So at this point, just be aware now you have options to do 8/2 split or a 7/3 split. It’s going to be really, really good if you’re stuck at a shippers or receivers location for awhile.

And more importantly to, as long as those two periods equals 10 hours, and then you take your full rest break afterwards, then neither qualifying period will count against the 14 hour duty window.

That’s a pretty huge deal. We encourage you to check out some of the news media outlets and see what they’re saying about it and try and get better understanding of exactly how you can apply this to your operation.

But again, it’s a brand new 7/3 sleeper berth split option, and also those 8/2 whichever two you select, those two periods must equal 10 hours. And then neither of those breaks will now qualify or count against your 14 hour driving window.

New Hours of Service Rules: Wrapping Up

So just to recap, you got a couple of different changes happening here.

The adverse driving conditions exception grants up to two additional hours of driving (and potentially On-duty time as well) and has a slight addition to the definition.

But, the most important change to the hours of service regulations is probably the addition of that new 7/3 sleeper split option and the ability for drivers to pause their driving time and duty day clocks and extend those windows by incorporating those breaks into their hours of service day.

A few other new hours of service rules that took effect were that the extension of the mileage requirements for using the short haul exemption (also known as the 150 air mile exemption ).

Now truckers can travel up to 150 air miles (or 172 or so statute/road miles) under the exception rather than the old 100 air mile radius.

Another new hours of service rules change deals with the 30 minute break rule. Previously, drivers would have to take a break of at least 30 minutes within 8 hours of coming on duty.

Now, the DOT 30 minute brake rule clock starts when a driver begins driving rather than when they came on duty.

If you would like some more information on this topic, here is the link to the FMCSA’s presentation on these important changes.

Additionally, feel free to check out our podcast on these changes as well on our CSA BASICs Podcast.