Hours of Service: An Introduction
Commercial truck drivers work long hours under physically demanding conditions. Ensuring that drivers get enough rest is a critical component of truck safety. That is the purpose of the federal Hours of Service regulations.
Commercial truckers transporting property (the rules for passenger trucks are a bit different) are subject to daily and weekly limits on the number of hours they are permitted to work. Generally, drivers are permitted to work no more than 14 consecutive hours. Of that time, only 11 hours may be devoted to driving. (The remaining time may be devoted to paperwork, loading and unloading, etc.) After exhausting these limits, drivers are required to spend a minimum of 10 consecutive hours off duty.
Drivers are subject to weekly limits as well. The regulations prohibit driving after the driver has been on-duty 60 hours in 7 consecutive days, or 70 hours in 8 consecutive days. Drivers may restart the 60 or 70 hour clock by taking no less than 34 consecutive hours off duty.
Drivers must record their status throughout the day as either “off-duty”, “sleeper berth”, “on duty, not driving”, or “driving.” An example of a completed log book is provided by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration here.
In truck crash litigation, it is important to study the driver’s logbook, but that is only a first step. The Hours of Service regulations are well known in the trucking industry, and commercial truck drivers will rarely confess to a violation in the log book. The possibility of falsified log books must always be considered. Log book entries should be compared to other evidence including receipts for fuel and food, credit card statements, cell phone records, bills of lading and other shipping records, loading dock security logs and servailance tapes, and GPS tracking data. A determination about whether a trucking crash was caused by a violation of the Hours of Service rules can be made only after all of the evidence has been considered.
