Trucking News: Trucking hours-of-service final rule under review at OMB

[Mike]

Major changes to federal hours-of-service (HOS) regulations have been sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for final review after two years of revisions and thousands of public comments.

The NPRM laid out five key proposed changes:

• Increasing flexibility for the 30-minute break rule by tying the break requirement to eight hours of driving time without an interruption for at least 30 minutes and allowing the break to be satisfied by a driver using on-duty, not driving status, rather than off-duty.
• Modifying the sleeper-berth exception to allow drivers to split their required 10 hours off duty into two periods: one period of at least seven consecutive hours in the sleeper berth; and the other period of not less than two consecutive hours, either off duty or in the sleeper berth. According to the proposal, neither period would count against the driver’s 14‑hour driving window.
• Allowing one off-duty break of at least 30 minutes, but not more than three hours, that would pause a truck driver’s 14-hour driving window, provided the driver takes 10 consecutive hours off-duty at the end of the work shift.
• Modifying the adverse driving conditions exception by extending by two hours the maximum window during which driving is permitted.
• Changing the short-haul exception by lengthening the drivers’ maximum on‑duty period from 12 hours to 14 hours and extending the distance limit within which the driver may operate from 100 air miles to 150 air miles.

Trucking hours-of-service final rule under review at OMB

Making the 30-minute rest break more flexible is one of the proposed changes.

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