How To Recap Hours Of Service

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This year'southward Hours of Service rule changes accept acquired more than than their fair share of consternation. From frustrated drivers to fleet managers left scratching their heads, we're getting inundated with requests to decode the FMCSA's 395.3 regulation. So, we've decided to tackle the 60/seven vs. 70/8 dominion set, recaptured hours — or the hours of service (HOS) recap — and the new 34-hour restart rule changes in a series of web log posts.

We want to be sure you have a crystal articulate agreement of what'south mandatory, what's not and how it all works…

…and we're kicking things off with the basics of the recapture.

Recapture on-duty hours with recap

Allow's say you're operating on the 70/8 rule set (or, put more simply, that yous tin't be on duty for more than 70 hours during the course of eight consecutive days).

If today were an on-duty twenty-four hour period for you, information technology would be Twenty-four hours i.

You'd and so have to add your Twenty-four hour period i hours to the on-duty hours you accumulated during the course of the previous seven.

As your cake of 8 days advances at 12 o'clock midnight, yous recapture the on-duty Hours of Service that take dropped off your log at 12:01AM.

The hours of service epitomize in practice

Nosotros go a lot of questions about the hours of service recap, and many come from new drivers.

So, let'south talk through an example.

Presume you're make new to the task, and y'all started on a Monday without any previous on-duty HOS to take into consideration.

If y'all piece of work eight-1/2 on-duty hours each day—from your first day on the chore until the following Mon—y'all'll have accumulated 68 hours on-duty.

When yous roll into Tuesday, your Day 8 shifts from the Monday of last week to the previous Tuesday. And the eight-1/2 hours that just fell off your rolling total (shown in light blue)? They're now available to you lot once more.

Hours of service epitomize or 34-hour restart?

As of July i, 2013, drivers must adhere to new 34-hour restart provisions, including the two 1AM – 5AM residue periods (we'll explore that rule in-depth in a future web log post).

Some things to go on in mind…

First and foremost, it's important to highlight the fact that you're not required to use the 34-hour restart rule.

Information technology'southward simply another tool y'all may utilize to manage your available hours and, depending on how much time y'all spend on-duty, the restart may exist the quickest way to get you dorsum backside the wheel.

Notwithstanding, considering the 34-hour reset rule states that you can merely take one weekly reset—or ane every 168 hours, from the beginning of your previous reset—those new limitations might be a key reason that a driver or a trucking fleet manager would await at the utilize of the recapture.

If you lot're working 8-3/4 hours of on-duty time or less each day, though, this may be a moot point. You could conceivably work to infinity without ever needing to take a 34-hr restart.

We hope this has been helpful.

Up next? A detailed look at the 34-hour restart method for managing hours of service.