FMCSA Publishes New Hours of Service Rule

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has released its long-awaited final rule on changes to drivers hours of service regulations. The new rule makes four primary changes to the existing rule:

1) 30-Minute Break: the new rule requires a break after 8 hours of driving time (not on-duty time) and allows the break to be satisfied by a driver using on-duty, not driving status, rather than just off-duty status.

2) Sleeper-Berth Exception: drivers can now split their required 10 hours off duty into two periods - an 8/2 split, or a 7/3 split— with neither period counting against the driver’s 14‑hour driving window.

3) Adverse Driving Conditions: the rule expands the maximum driving window by 2 hours for bus and truck drivers.

4) Short-Haul Exception: the rule changes the short-haul exception, which is available to certain commercial drivers, by lengthening the driver’s maximum on‑duty period from 12 to 14 hours and extending the short-haul distance limit from 100 air miles to 150 air miles.

The agency had previously sought feedback on a proposal that could have extended the 14-hour driving window. That proposal would have allowed a driver to take an off-duty break of between 30 minutes and 3 hours that would “pause” the 14-hour driving window as long as the driver took 10 consecutive hours off duty at the end of the work shift. FMCSA decided not to implement that pause in its new rule. The rule will be effective 120 days after publication in the Federal Register, which will likely happen by early June.