Hours of Service Regulations

The first hour of service rule is the "11-Hour Driving Limit" and it states a property carrying driver "May drive a maximum of 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty."

The following comes from Teamsters legal council and explains how that rule applies to delivery drivers.

The question asked of council was "does this schedule represent how the 11 hour driving limit applies to delivery drivers?"

Example:

8:45 am: Start time

9:00 am: Leave Building

10:00 am: Hour 1

11:00 am: Hour 2

12:00 pm: Hour 3

1:00 pm: One half hour lunch and two 15 minute breaks(combined for ease of calculation)

2:00 pm: Hour 4

3:00 pm: Hour 5

4:00 pm: Hour 6

5:00 pm: Hour 7

6:00 pm: Hour 8

7:00 pm: Hour 9

8:00 pm: Hour 10

9:00 pm: Return to building to end hour 11

Teamsters Legal Council reply to this question:

It is true that the federal rules provide that an employee may only drive 11 hours after a 10 hours being fully off duty. However, the regulations also provide that you can be on duty for 14 hours. So, the 11 hours is not how long they can work but how long they can be actually behind the wheel driving. The schedule that the questioning employee raised to you is based on an assumption that the entire non-break time that the employee is driving. However, whenever they are off making a delivery or doing other duties that are not actually driving – it does not count against the 11 hour limit. It is my opinion that this schedule put forth by the employee does not violate the HOS rules so long as the employee is not driving the entire time. However, the employees should be monitoring actual drive time and if they reach (or are approaching) 11 hours of actual driving time, they should contact their supervisor.