FMCSA changes to Hours of Service (HoS) regulations

On September 29, 2020 the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) updated Hours of Service rules for commercial motor vehicle drivers.

What changes have been made?

The FMCSA has made changes in the following areas:

The short-haul exception has been expanded to 150 air-miles and allows a 14-hour work shift to take place
The permitted on-duty time during adverse driving conditions has been expanded by up to 2 additional hours
A 30-minute break is required after 8 hours of driving time, instead of on-duty time, and drivers are allowed to use an on-duty (not driving) period to qualify as the required break
The sleeper berth rules will now allow drivers to split their required 10 hours off duty into two periods: an 8/2 split, or a 7/3 split

What do you need to know?

On September 29, 2020 we released a new version of LogBook. The release contains the following changes:

Expanded the permitted on-duty time when using the adverse driving conditions extension by 2 hours. For more information see Extend your hours of service.
Changed the rules around 30-minute breaks and split breaks when using the sleeper berth. For more information see Violations and breaks.

The CDL short-haul exemption will be added in a future version of LogBook. To use a workaround for the exemption, see Using a workaround for the CDL short-haul exemption as a driver and Use a workaround for the CDL short-haul exemption as an administrator.

Full details of the announcement can be found on the FMCSA website www.fmcsa.dot.gov.

What actions do you need to take?

To use the new regulations, make sure you are using the latest version of the LogBook mobile app on September 29 or later. Then, get your drivers to log out of LogBook and back in again.