Hours of Service Ruling Challenge – The Verdict is In

THE VERDICT IS IN on the new Hours of Service ruling challenge:A federal court has been hearing a challenge to the changes to the HOS rules enacted by the FMCSA in December 2011.
These include 3 changes that became effective in Feb 2012:
1 – Minor adjustment regarding the oilfield exemptions
2 – Clarification of what constitutes ‘egregious’ violations of HOS
3 – Slight redefinition of what constitutes qualifying 10-hour break
And two changes that became effective in July 2013:
4 – Mandatory 30-minute break during each 8-hour on-duty period
5 – Modification of the 34-hour restart rule

The legal challenges were primarily aimed at rolling back the final two segments of the new rule.

The court’s decision was announced Friday, 2 August.

The FMCSA’s changes were all upheld by the court, with one minor exception: the 30-minute break requirement will NOT apply to local-delivery drivers.

Now, our advice is, don’t immediately start scheduling local drivers for uninterrupted 11-hour on-duty periods.
Today, the 30-minute break is STILL mandatory.
BUT, we expect the agency to move very quickly to put an exemption in part 395 indicating local delivery drivers will not be required to observe the mandatory 30-minute break.

One of the things that remains to be seen is exactly how will the agency define local delivery drivers.