CMV Maximum Driving Time: Observations
These rules limit driving to eleven hours over a fourteen-hour period between ten hours of rest for property-carrying vehicles, and ten hours driving over a fifteen-hour period after eight hours rest for a passenger-carrying CMV. However, as the “11 hours driving in a 14 hour period” rule suggests, there is more to working as a driver than just driving. A driver may wait at a shipper’s terminal for hours. He may have to fill out paperwork, inspect and fuel his truck, or load or unload cargo. These activities are all included within “on-duty” time, and they all count towards the maximum period of time a driver may go – fourteen hours – between rests of at least ten hours. (or fifteen hours on-duty between eight hours rest for a passenger carrying CMV).
Thus, a cargo driver who has sat at a terminal waiting four hours for his truck to be loaded may only drive ten hours before he takes his ten hours of off-duty rest. This rule must be examined in every case where there is any suspicion of forged logs or avoidance of the rules. Note also the concern with cumulative fatigue, embodied in the regulation’s prohibition against driving after seventy hours on duty over an eight day period for an every-day-a-week motor carrier that is hauling property. Thus, a driver who drives eleven hours and takes ten hours off every day, counting round the clock, is out of hours by day six of the eight day period, assuming he has no “on-duty, not driving” time. To be sure, a driver with no “on duty-not driving” time is highly suspect in any event.