Guides
The rules, in plain words.
The hours-of-service rules and the ELD rules are written in legal language, and the legal language is where drivers get hurt. These guides translate them: what the rule says, how the math works on a real day, and where people get tripped up. Every guide names the section of 49 CFR it comes from, so you can check us.
Your hours
The four clocks, and the rules that move them
Hours of service, explained plain
The 11-hour drive limit, the 14-hour window, the 30-minute break and the 60/70-hour week — and one full day worked through, hour by hour.
The 34-hour restart
How 34 consecutive hours off resets the week to zero, when a restart beats waiting for hours to come back, and the old extra conditions that are gone.
Split sleeper berth
The pairing rule — one rest of at least 7 hours in the berth, one of at least 2 — and what a completed pair really does to your clocks.
Team driving hours
Two drivers, one truck, two full sets of clocks. Who owns the driving, how the sleeper resets the second driver, and a rolling day worked through.
Adverse driving conditions
The extra 2 hours for weather you didn't know was coming: exactly when they apply, what they stretch, and what they never stretch.
Special statuses
Moving the truck without burning driving time
Personal conveyance
Moving the truck for personal reasons while off duty — the agency's own examples of what counts, what never does, and the carrier's right to restrict it.
Yard moves
Moving inside a yard as on-duty not driving: where it applies, where it never applies, and what it does not do to your window and your week.
Exemptions
When the ELD — or the whole rulebook — steps aside
The short-haul exception
Inside 150 air-miles and released within 14 hours, the ELD and logbook fall away and time records take their place. The four conditions, and what breaks them.
The 16-hour short-haul day
Daily-return drivers can stretch the window to 16 hours, once, under three conditions. The fine print — starting with the 11-hour limit, which does not move.
ELD exemptions
Pre-2000 engines, driveaway-towaway work, and the 8-days-in-30 rule: who does not need an ELD, and what the exempt still owe on paper.
The agricultural exemption
During planting and harvest, Part 395 steps aside inside 150 air-miles of the source. How the radius is measured, and what happens the mile you cross it.
Records and roadside
Inspections, malfunctions, edits and audits
Roadside inspection
How the record transfer works, what the officer sees, and the small packet of instruction sheets and blank logs the rules require in the cab.
When the ELD breaks
The malfunction drill: note it, notify the carrier in writing within 24 hours, run on paper — and the carrier's 8-day clock to repair or replace.
Unidentified driving records
The truck rolled and nobody was logged in. Where those records come from, the driver's duty at the next login, and the office's two ways to clear them.
Editing your logs
What can be corrected, why the original always stays, why driving time can never be shortened — and why the office cannot change your record without you.
The DOT safety audit
The records a carrier must keep and for how long: logs, supporting documents, ELD backups, driver files and vehicle files — the retention table in one place.
Choosing and history
Buying a device, and how we got here
How to choose an ELD
How a device gets onto the list FMCSA publishes, what it means that makers certify their own devices, what a removal means for your trucks — and the questions to ask any provider.
Paper logs, AOBRDs and ELDs
Who can still use what today: the grandfather window that closed in December 2019, and the three situations where paper is still the law.
A question the guides didn't answer?
Rules are general; your week is specific. Call us and we'll talk it through with you — or write, if you'd rather.