New Hours of Service Rules

Posted on December 23, 2010 
Filed Under HOURS OF SERVICE, IN THE NEWS

Again, here are the new rules. So what have they done? Well, to somewhat restate their summary in the proposed rulemaking, they have made 9…. yes count them… 9 changes.

First, they are considering changing the 11 hour driving rule to 10 hours, but they have not committed totally to that. They state they think that’s the way to go, but will “carefully consider” all comments to the contrary. Ok, so it will be a 10 hour driving rule, let’s not fool ourselves.

Second, they are allowing you to be on-duty 16 hours twice a week. Everyone gets to be on-duty 16 hours twice a week. Well, right there, that will get them sued by the safety crazies. Of course, it really doesn’t matter what FMCSA publishes, they will be sued by the safety crazies. Ok, moving on…

Third, actual duty time while in your “driving window” (it seems “driving window” is a new term), is limited to 13 hours. In other words, I can drive 10 hours, be on-duty for another 3 hours, and then I must have at least an hour of off-duty time mixed in there. So, if I’m using the 16 hour window, I still can only be on-duty for 13 hours.

Fourth, I am only allowed to drive 7 consecutive hours, and then I must take at least a 30 minute off-duty or sleeper berth break.

Fifth, the 34 hour reset is still available, however, it must emcompass two consecutive periods from midnight to 6am. So, if I get back to the yard on Friday night at 8pm, my 34 hour break would last until 6am Sunday morning. My two midnight-6am periods would be Saturday and Sunday morning, so at 6am Sunday morning, I’d be good to go, just like I am under the current rules. However, if I didn’t make it back to the yard until 1am Saturday morning, I’d lose a whole day. I would have to be off until 6am Monday morning, in order to get my two consecutive midnight to 6am breaks. I guess there will be a mad rush for the regional drivers to get home by midnight, or they’ll turn into pumpkins.

Sixth: You can only use the 34 hour reset once a week…. or as the rule says, once every 168 hours. So, if you use the 34 hour reset on the weekend, you can’t restart your clock until next weekend, even if you take Tuesday and half of Wednesday off.

Seventh: on-duty time is being revised to allow a driver resting in a parked vehicle or a sleeper berth to record that time as off-duty. Also, they are now allowing a team driver to sit up front for 2 hours following an 8 hour sleeper break, and log that time as off-duty.

Eighth: Some type of changes in the oilfield exceptions, which frankly I didn’t read. If my oilfield customers call me, I’ll dig into that further.

Ninth: They are declaring violations in excess of 3 hours driving over the 10 hour driving limit to be “egregious”, which will allow them to assess the maximum penalty allowable by law. That would be $11,000 per violation.

So, what happens next? I believe FMCSA will allow comments for the next 60 days. So, if you want to vent….. go for it. It won’t change anything, but by all means let them know what you think of them. Then, at some point in the spring, they’ll come out with the ‘final rules’, which I suppose will be fairly close to these proposed rules. The new rules will be effective by July, I think, and they’ll probably start enforcing them by October. That’s my best guess of the timetable we’re looking at, I have no special knowledge in that area; it could end up being something totally different.

What do we think of all this? This is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be 6 months ago. I suspected they might tone down the changes due to the outcome of the election. I don’t know if they did or not, but this is somewhat manageable. The biggest loss is the 11th hour of driving. The 13 hour rule…. most regional carriers have plenty of sit-and-wait time during the day, so some of that on-duty time waiting to be loaded or unloaded will now become off-duty time, so nothing will change there, I predict. The changes to the 34 hour reset rules will make it tougher to properly utilize the reset, but maybe not that much tougher. The allowance of two 16 hour “windows” a week is an unexpected bonus, which I assume will draw yet another lawsuit from the safety crazies.

I see two worrisome items in these rules. First, the possibility of an $11,000 fine for a driving violation in excess of 3 hours. I see all kinds of trouble with that. If I short my 10 hour break by 15 minutes, that could easily put me way over on hours the next day. Am I now subject to an $11,000 penalty because I looked at my watch wrong? Who is going to make that decision? The auditors, and the auditors’ bosses. Will there be any uniformity or fairness attached to how they use this new club, or will it be used to grind out huge penalties? This may be clarified in the final rule. Second, they seem to now regulate when you must be off-duty. In other words, the rules say I must be off-duty by my 13th hour, I can no longer be on-duty. If I do not drive beyond this 13th hour, where is the harm? I’m not in a truck, I’m not on the public highway, if I decide I want to work in the office, or the yard beyond my 13th hour, where is the violation? Where is the FMCSA jurisdicition? I suspect this may be an oversight in the proposed rules, which will be corrected in the final rule.

This isn’t over yet, but this gives us some idea of what could be coming in the next year.

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