Apex Capital Explains the FMCSA 2019 Hours of Service Proposal
Apex Capital Explains the FMCSA 2019 Hours of Service Proposal
On Wednesday, August 14, 2019, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration officially announced their proposal for Hours of Service changes. We wanted to explain the potential changes and what you can expect to happen next.
We hope this helps and if you want to comment on these changes head over to www.regulations.gov and search for Docket Number FMCSA-2018-0248.
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Hi I’m Hannah and this is Reghan we’re with Apex Capital. Thank you so much for joining us. We’re here because some pretty big news broke yesterday that FMCSA officially published their proposal for hours of service changes and when I looked at them first I was a little confused. I went over to Reghan and we talked about it and we kind of had it work it out and we’re gonna talk about it.
We’re gonna explain it because we know we’re not the only ones who didn’t really get it. So we’re gonna talk about they’re focusing on five areas we’re gonna break down what those five areas are and then we’re gonna tell you what you can expect to happen next.
So first we’ve got the 30 minute rest break and you still have to take a 30 minute rest break after eight hours of consecutive driving that is not changing, but what you are gonna be able to do is take that 30 minute rest break on duty not driving, off duty, or in the sleeper berths so more options that gives you. Yes exactly more flexibility just to be able to plan when and where you want to take your break and then next we have the off duty break and this is kind of a new one and it’s really cool what it would do is give you at least 30 minutes up to three hours to essentially pause your 14 hour work day clock and so this could be used for something like waiting out traffic which is gonna add some more flexibility there so you know just keep in mind that the 10-hour restart still applies safe to take ten consecutive hours off duty in order to restart that 14 hour day clock
so speaking about that speaking of 10 hour break then the next rule that they’re proposing is the sleeper berth rule so right right now you have to do an 8 to 2 split where you do eight hours consecutive in the sleeper berth and then the next two hours can be sleeper berth or just off-duty well what they’re proposing is that you can do seven consecutive hours in the sleeper berth and then two hours can be off-duty or at least two hours at least two hours so that’s not ten hours that doesn’t add up 7 & 2 don’t add up to 10 but they’re saying that you know given certain situations maybe you don’t need as much sleep maybe you need to get to where you’re going you have to do at least 7 consecutive hours sleeper berth and then at least 2 so right it gives you more flexibility to plan your day maybe you get busy doing something for 30 minutes and you take it to a two an half-hour break off duty
so next we have the adverse driving condition yep and so this is kind of adding to the current adverse driving condition exception so currently you know when there’s adverse driving conditions and that’s things like really bad storms fog snow traffic it’s due to a shutdown you know not normal traffic but currently when those conditions occur two up to two hours can be added to your 11 hour maximum on-duty driving time during your 14-hour work day period what this new rule would do would be to also add two hours to the entire work period so you’d get you know up to 13 hours of driving time in your up to 16 now 16 hour work day period and
next we have the short haul exception yep and so this is the fifth and final one and so this actually brought into the current short haul exception so currently you’re relieved of the mandates related to logging especially using eld devices if you during your work day it takes you no further than 100 air-mile radius out as well as starting your workday and ending your workday completely within a 12 hour period at the same no point location and so broadening this it essentially adds 50 air miles so allows you to go 150 air mile radius out during that day and adds two more hours to the workday so taking it from 12 to 14 hours to be able to start and end your workday in that location so that’s all five areas and we know that that change you get an hour here 50 air mile radius there it’s not very big there’s not very it’s not a big change just huge but it’s just to add more flexibility help drivers be able to plan for things that they can’t control and give be able to help them just all-in-all change their change their day and be able to work with the clock that they have so what can we expect to happen next well what’s going to happen next is the FMCSA is going to publish this in the Federal Register and then this will open up public comments so public comments are gonna be open for 45 days and what this whole comment period is for it’s for you it’s for you to tell the FMCSA if you agree with the changes if you disagree with the changes or if you think that they can be tweaked more and that they really do want to hear from you this is really it’s all about you guys this is why they’re proposing these changes right so and so when the comment period closes that’s when the FMCSA you know takes the time to go through all the comments and see if any of these five proposed rules need to be adjusted tweaked basically what what they’re hearing doesn’t warrant something to change their proposal and then at some point and what we’re hearing is either later this year or early 2020 they would propose a final rule with a future effective date yeah so if you want to leave a comment if you want to go leave a comment about these these proposed rules then you can go to www.regulations.gov of and you’re gonna search for the docket number the docket number of is FMCSA – 2018 – 0248 so that’s where you’ll go search for it leave a comment let them know what you think and you know we really that that’s really all we have we hope that this helped you and thanks so much for watching and have a great day thanks bye