WASHINGTON, D.C. — FMCSA Administrator Annette Sandberg has presented the new hours of service regulations for the U.S.

The new regulations included two revisions — a result of the new rulemaking started by the federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in January of this year, in response issues concerning the present rules raised by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last July. The FMCSA was given until Sept. 30 of this year to address these concerns, which included the court’s opinion that driver health and safety was not adequately addressed and that the mandatory requirement for electronic on-board recorders were absent from the proposed regulation.

The FMCSA’s new proposed rule, presented today, did not alter the 34 hour restart (recovery) period or the 11 hour driving limit in any way. However, the agency did change the sleeper berth exception as it applies to both sleeper team drivers as well as solo drivers.

The new sleeper berth rule continues to allow drivers to split their 10 hours of off-duty time, but requires a minimum of eight hours in the sleeper berth, coupled with a two hour break either in or out of the sleeper berth. The agency also added a short haul exemption for non-CDL drivers operating within a 150 air mile radius. This new exemption allows drivers to have two 16-hour workdays each week, and exempts these drivers from completing logbooks.
ATA has developed a concise chart that shows what elements of the rules were retained and what was changed. FMCSA has placed the new rule and a number of helpful documents on the agency’s Web site as well. These can be downloaded at http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/topics/hos/HOS-2005.htm