Hours of Service Rules: 11-Hour, 14-Hour, 30-Minute Break, and 70-Hour Limits

If you haul freight, four clocks run your day: the 11-hour driving limit, the 14-hour window, the 30-minute break, and the 60 or 70-hour weekly limit. Here's what each one means in plain words, with the numbers from the federal rule for property-carrying drivers (49 CFR 395.3).

The 11-hour driving limit

After 10 consecutive hours off duty, you can drive up to 11 hours. Only time behind the wheel counts toward the 11. Loading, fueling, and paperwork don't, but they still eat into the 14-hour window.

The 14-hour window

You can't drive after the 14th hour since you came on duty. It's a wall clock, not a work clock. A two-hour wait at a shipper or a lunch stop doesn't pause it. If you come on duty at 06:00, you're done driving at 20:00 no matter how much of that time you spent driving. The only thing that pulls time out of the 14 is a qualifying sleeper berth split (below).

The 30-minute break

You can't drive once you've driven 8 hours without a 30-minute interruption. The 30 minutes have to be in a row, and they can be off duty, sleeper berth, or on duty not driving, or a mix of those. Sitting at a dock for 30 minutes while you're unloaded counts. The break resets the 8-hour count, but it doesn't stop the 14-hour clock.

The 60/70-hour limit and the recap

If your carrier doesn't run every day, you can't drive after 60 hours on duty in 7 days. If it runs every day, the limit is 70 hours in 8 days. Most over-the-road carriers use 70/8. On-duty time means driving plus on duty not driving.

The window rolls. Each midnight, the oldest day drops off and its hours come back to you. That's the recap. Say your last 8 days, oldest first, were 10, 11, 9, 0, 0, 12, 13, and 5 hours so far today. That's 60 hours, so you have 10 left today. At midnight, the 10-hour day drops off. If you don't work any more today, you'll have 70 − 50 = 20 hours tomorrow.

The 34-hour restart

Take 34 or more consecutive hours off duty and your 7 or 8-day period starts over with the full 60 or 70 hours. A restart is worth it when you're nearly out and the days about to drop off are light. If a heavy day is about to roll off, waiting for the recap may give you as much back without sitting for 34 hours.

Sleeper berth split: 7/3 and 8/2

Instead of taking 10 hours off in one piece, you can pair two rests (49 CFR 395.1(g)). The rules:

• One rest is at least 7 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth.
• The other is at least 2 consecutive hours, in the sleeper or off duty.
• Together they add up to at least 10 hours. 7/3 and 8/2 are the common splits.
• Driving before and after each rest can't add up to more than 11 hours, or break the 14-hour window.

The payoff: the qualifying rests don't count against your 14 hours, and when the second rest ends, your clocks are recalculated from the end of the first one.

Worked example. You come on duty at 06:00 and drive 6 hours. At 14:00 you've been on the clock 8 hours, and you go into the sleeper for 7 hours, until 21:00. You drive 5 more hours and stop at 02:00. So far: 6 + 5 = 11 hours of driving around the first rest, and 8 + 5 = 13 hours of window, both within limits. You take 3 hours off duty, until 05:00. That completes a 7/3 split. Your clocks now run from 21:00, when the first rest ended: you've used 5 hours of driving and 5 hours of window since then, so you have 11 − 5 = 6 hours of driving and 14 − 5 = 9 hours of window left.

Adverse driving conditions

If snow, ice, fog, or unusual road or traffic conditions you couldn't have known about before you started keep you from finishing within the limits, you may drive up to 2 more hours to finish the run or get to a safe place (49 CFR 395.1(b)(1)). It extends both the 11 and the 14. It doesn't cover conditions you knew about, or could reasonably have known about, when you started the day (49 CFR 395.2).

Put it together: a sample day

On duty at 06:00. It's 13:30 and you've driven 5.5 hours without a break. You have 11 − 5.5 = 5.5 hours of driving left, and your window closes at 20:00, 6.5 hours from now. Your break is due after 8 − 5.5 = 2.5 more hours of driving, at 16:00 if you drive straight through. Taking that 30 minutes still leaves 6 hours of window, so the 11-hour limit is what stops you: 5.5 more hours of driving today, if your 70 hours allow it.

Run your own numbers in the hours of service calculator, which also checks a sleeper berth split. If you're billing for time stuck at a dock, the detention pay calculator works out what to invoice.

What this doesn't cover

Short-haul drivers, drivers using other exceptions in 49 CFR 395.1, and bus and passenger carriers have different rules. Your ELD record is what counts at inspection. A calculator is a planning tool, not a log and not legal advice.