70 Hour Rule: DOT 60/70-Hour Limits and the 34-Hour Restart

What is the 70 hour rule in trucking?

The 70 hour rule means you may not drive a property-carrying truck after you've been on duty 70 hours in any 8 consecutive days. It applies when your motor carrier operates trucks every day of the week. The rule is 49 CFR 395.3(b)(2), part of the federal hours of service (HOS) rules in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) chapter of the regulations.

It's a rolling limit, not a weekly one. There's no fixed "week" that resets on Sunday. At any moment, you look back over the last 8 days, including today, and add up your on-duty hours.

The 60 hour rule vs the 70 hour rule

Which limit applies depends on your motor carrier's schedule, not your own. 49 CFR 395.3(b) sets two options:

If you run under your own authority, you are the motor carrier. If you're leased on, it's the carrier you're leased to. Most over-the-road operations run every day and use 70/8.

The days aren't necessarily midnight to midnight. Under 49 CFR 395.2, the 7 or 8 consecutive days begin at the time the motor carrier designates for the start of its 24-hour period.

What counts toward the 70 hours

All on-duty time counts, not just driving. 49 CFR 395.2 defines on-duty time as all time from when you begin work, or must be ready to work, until you're relieved of all work. That includes:

• all driving time
• inspecting, servicing, or fueling the truck
• loading, unloading, or waiting while you're loaded or unloaded
• waiting at a shipper, terminal, or carrier facility to be dispatched, unless you've been relieved from duty
• time spent with a disabled truck
• any other work for a motor carrier, and any paid work for anyone else

Off-duty time and time resting in the sleeper berth don't count. The rule bars driving once you reach the limit. Any on-duty work you do after that still counts, and it delays when your hours come back.

How hours roll off: the recap

You get hours back as old days drop out of the window. Each time a new day starts, the oldest day falls off, and whatever you worked that day becomes available again. Drivers call this the recap.

To find what you have left today under 70/8: add your on-duty hours for the previous 7 days, and subtract the total from 70. Under 60/7, add the previous 6 days and subtract from 60.

The 34 hour restart

A 34-hour restart lets you start a fresh 7 or 8-day period with the full 60 or 70 hours. Under 49 CFR 395.3(c), any period of 7 or 8 consecutive days may end with the beginning of an off-duty period of 34 or more consecutive hours. When the 34 hours end, your old on-duty hours no longer count.

The restart is optional. You can always just let hours roll off. A restart pays off when the days about to drop off are light, because the recap would give you little back. If a heavy day is about to drop off, the recap may give you enough without sitting for 34 hours.

How the 70 hour rule works with the 11 and 14

The 70 hour rule is a ceiling on top of your daily limits. 49 CFR 395.3(a) still applies every shift:

• 10 hours off before you start driving.
• 11 hours of driving at most in the shift.
• No driving after the 14th hour since you came on duty.
• A 30-minute break once you've driven 8 hours without one.

Whichever limit runs out first stops you. Early in a week, the 11 and 14 usually stop you. Late in a hard week, the 70 often does. Five 14-hour on-duty days add up to exactly 70 hours. The hours of service rules guide covers the daily clocks and the sleeper berth split in detail.

Worked example: a week under the 70 hour rule

Say your carrier runs every day, so you're on 70/8. Here are your on-duty hours, counting driving plus on duty not driving:

Monday of week 2. The previous 7 days add up to 62 hours. So you have 70 − 62 = 8 hours today. You come on duty at 06:00, and at 14:00 you've used all 8. Say 7 of those were driving. Your 11-hour clock still has 4 hours and your 14-hour window runs until 20:00. But you've reached 70 hours in 8 days, so you can't drive again today.

Tuesday. The first Monday (11 hours) drops out of the window. The previous 7 days are now Tuesday through Monday: 12 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 6 + 0 + 8 = 59. You have 70 − 59 = 11 hours on duty today.

Wednesday. If you use all 11 hours Tuesday, the first Tuesday (12 hours) drops off next. The previous 7 days become 10 + 11 + 12 + 6 + 0 + 8 + 11 = 58. You have 12 hours Wednesday.

Would a restart be better? If you go off duty at 14:00 Monday and stay off 34 hours, the restart ends at 00:00 Wednesday. You'd have a fresh 70 hours, but you'd lose all of Tuesday. Here the recap wins, because heavy days (11, 12, 10, 11, 12) are next in line to drop off.

Flip it around. If the days about to drop off were a 0-hour Sunday and a 6-hour Saturday, the recap would give back almost nothing. Then a 34-hour restart gets you rolling sooner.

The 60 hour rule, same example

Now say your carrier doesn't operate every day, so you're on 60/7. On Monday of week 2, only the previous 6 days count: 12 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 6 + 0 = 51. You'd have 60 − 51 = 9 hours. The 34-hour restart works the same way for a 7-day period.

Plan your hours before you take the load

Before you accept a load, check that your 70 and your daily clocks cover the run. The hours of service calculator tracks your 11, 14, and 70-hour clocks together. If a slow shipper is eating your hours, the detention pay calculator works out what to bill. The load profit calculator shows whether a load is worth the hours.

This page covers property-carrying drivers under 49 CFR 395.3. Exceptions in 49 CFR 395.1, such as short-haul, change some limits, and passenger carriers follow 49 CFR 395.5. Your ELD record is what counts at a roadside inspection.