The saga of driver's hours-of-service regulations continues.

After four years, since issuing new regulations, the Department of Transportation is still bogged down with legal challenges from the Teamsters Union and so called safety advocate groups.

The 2003 rule was struck down by federal courts and two provisions of the 2005 rule were vacated by the same court. The two provisions vacated were the 11 hour driving and the 34 hour reset rules.

Since the latest court ruling, DOT has issued an Interim Final Rule (IFR) which becomes effective December 27, 2007. This IFR goes into effect just as the court's vacating of the two provisions goes into effect.

The IFR reissues the 11 hour driving and the 34 hour reset rules.

Safety advocate groups have already announced they are going to fight the IFR in court.

What Does This Mean for You?

For now, the hours-of-service regulations will remain the same as the ones you are currently using, including:

■ 14 hour maximum shift. The shift clock starts as soon as the driver begins his/her shift. Nothing stops the clock except sleeper-berth time. All off-duty time, lunches, fueling, etc., is counted toward the 14 hour period.

■ 11 hour maximum driving. Of the 14 hour shift only 11 hours can be driving.

■ 10 hours off. After reaching the 11 hours driving and/or 14 hour shift time a driver must take 10 hours off-duty and/or sleeper-berth time in order to reset their daily shift clock. Once they have been off-duty 10 straight hours they have a new 14 hour shift with 11 hours driving time.

■ 70 total hours in 8 days or 60 total hours in 7 days. If you operate 7 days a week you can use the 70 hour rule. This works best for most carriers.

You can't, however, use both rules or switch between them. Pick one or the other and use the one that best fits your operations. There are circumstances where you can use both rules but they're too complex to go into in this article. If you're interested, call us and we'll explain them to you.

■ Split Sleeper. Drivers can split the 10 hour off-duty/sleeper-berth period into two periods. One period must be at least 8 hours. The second period, used to fulfill the 10 hours, can consist of either off-duty or sleeper-berth time.

Remember, if you split sleeper-berth time, the new 14 hour shift starts at the end of the first sleeper-berth period, not the final period.

This little technicality confuses drivers and causes many hours-of-service violations and driver out-of-services at scales. We recommend that drivers don't use the split sleeper rule unless their delivery schedules require it. In most cases drivers are better off by taking a full 10 hours off and starting a new clock.

Remember too, the 10 hours off-duty can consist of sleeper-berth and/or off-duty, as long as the time is consecutive.

We'll keep everyone posted when and if there are any changes to the regulations. In the meantime, just keep doing what you're doing!

FMCSA has indicated that they are prepared to fight any court challenges to the IFR and plan to issue the final rule in 2008.