FMCSA shares online tool to help truckers understand those HOS changes that went into effect today

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is trying to clear up any confusion about changes to truck driver Hours of Service (HOS) rules with an online educational tool.

The FMCSA shared an online tool intended to help motor carriers and drivers better understand four major changes to HOS regulations went into effect on Tuesday, September 29 — see below for a brief run down of those changes

• The FMCSA will increase safety and flexibility for the 30-minute break rule by requiring a break after 8 hours of consecutive driving and allowing the break to be satisfied by a driver using on-duty, not driving status, rather than off-duty status.
• The FMCSA will modify the sleeper-berth exception to allow drivers to split their required 10 hours off duty into two periods: an 8/2 split, or a 7/3 split—with neither period counting against the driver’s 14‑hour driving window.
• The FMCSA will modify the adverse driving conditions exception by extending by two hours the maximum window during which driving is permitted.
• The FMCSA will change the short-haul exception available to certain commercial drivers by lengthening the drivers’ maximum on‑duty period from 12 to 14 hours and extending the distance limit within which the driver may operate from 100 air miles to 150 air miles.

The Educational Tool for Hours of Service (ETHOS) allows drivers to create an example record of duty log to determine whether there are any violations of the new rules (though it is important to note that the tool does not cover 60/70-hour limit requirements).

The ETHOS tool also allows truckers to view pre-populated examples of logs to show how the new rules can be utilized.

The FMCSA says that data entered into the tool is not recorded and will not be used by the agency for any purpose.

You can click here to try out ETHOS for yourself.

For additional information from the FMCSA on the HOS changes, please click here.