As you should well know, starting a shipping company isn’t as easy as buying a big-rig and filling it with freight. Hundreds of laws and regulations govern how shipping companies can operate — and specifically when and how drivers can work. Because billions of dollars rests on drivers’ shoulders, it is imperative that you compel your drivers to adhere to the rules established by the Department of Transportation and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which are outlined below.
The Hours of Service Rules
Perhaps the most well-known regulations in the trucking industry, the Hours of Service rules govern when and for how long drivers can work. Unfortunately, the FMCSA doesn’t always make it clear what its Hours of Service rules mean, with the result that many trucking companies and many drivers are not properly compliant. This is incredibly dangerous; not only does it risk the health and safety of the driver (to say nothing of the freight) but it also opens the organization to significant penalizations, including fines and civil penalties and forced shut down of individual drivers or fleets.
In truth, there are two sets of rules that pertain to the two different kinds of services drivers can provide: property carrying or passenger carrying. Because our audience typically falls into the former category, that’s what we’ll be focusing on in this guide. Here are the major rules, broken down so you can understand them.
The 11-hour Driving Limit
This states that a driver cannot drive for more than 11 hours each day. The driving hours can (and should) be broken up with breaks for meals or other bodily necessities, but they cannot extend beyond 11 hours — and those 11 hours can only begin after 10 consecutive hours of off-duty rest.
The 14-hour Limit
Because the name is so similar to the above 11-hour Driving Limit, many truckers are confused by this additional regulation. This rule states that drivers can only be on duty for 14 consecutive hours — during which time they will complete up to their 11 hours of driving. The remaining on-duty time can be filled with meals and other breaks, but no amount of off-duty time extends the 14-hour limit. As with the 11-hour Driving Limit, drivers can only check back into duty if they enjoyed 10 consecutive hours of rest first.
Rest Breaks
Studies show that a drowsy driver is potentially more dangerous than a distracted or an intoxicated driver. With that in mind, the FMCSA permits truck drivers behind the wheel only if it has been eight hours or less since their last off-duty shut-eye of 30 minutes or more. Essentially, this means drivers are required to take a nap if they plan to drive up to their full 11-hour daily limit!
60/70-Hour Limit
For most American workers, 40 hours makes up an average work week — but in the past, truckers have been pushed to do at least twice that. To curb the encouragement of excessive work weeks, the 60/70-Hour Limit states that drivers may not drive after 60 hours in seven consecutive days or 70 hours in eight consecutive days. Only after 34 or more hours off-duty may a driver start a new seven- or eight-day period.
The ELD Mandate
Rules similar to these have been in effect for some time, and to ensure they were adhering to the regulations, drivers were required to manually log their hours. As you might expect, these logs were rife with errors and required drivers and trucking companies alike to waste hours on messy and confusing paperwork. As a result, in 2012 fleets were required to transition to ELD devices, or electronic logging devices, which automatically capture records of on-duty and off-duty time used for Hours of Service and other regulations. Rules regarding ELD tools continue to shift, due in large part to the constant improvements to the available technology.
The FMCSA and other regulators are striving to reach a balance between collecting important information about driver activity and behavior and preventing trucking companies from using technology to harass their employees. In general, the Hours of Service standards and the ELD mandate are major steps in the right direction for both truckers and their employers, so even if they weren’t required for operation, they should be top priorities for safe trucking.
