As most of you know, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has in recent weeks issued a series of emergency hours of service exemptions for those hauling relief loads to support efforts to combat the COVID-19 coronavirus as it spreads throughout the United States. The definitions of just what constitutes an emergency relief load is expansive, of which plenty readers have taken notice — it includes food to grocery stores struggling to restock their shelves after panic buying (ongoing in some instances) by consumers.
Here’s the short list of loads from the most recent suspension declaration, which will extend through April 12 unless otherwise specified and which expands the list to include precursor raw materials for items mentioned:
If you’re hauling an emergency load, none of the hours of service regulations apply, generally speaking, including the requirement to use an electronic logging device for most. However, documentation of what you’re hauling and just how you hauled it could be useful down the line during an inspection or audit if questions arise. Mixed loads that only contain some emergency-related supplies can be covered under the regulatory exemption as long as the quantity is more than just “nominal,” in FMCSA’s words.
Drivers engaged in emergency hauling do not need to take a 34-hour restart before resuming normal operation, though the Truckload Carriers Association calls what FMCSA wants drivers to do in that event perhaps the “most important” aspect of conforming to the exemption and what little regulatory guidance exists around it: Take a 10-hour break after the emergency hauling is done, and make certain resuming standard hours operation will not put you in violation of the 60/70 hours in 7/8 days cumulative limits (the emergency load’s hours do not count toward the calculation).
FMCSA’s emergency declaration itself does, however, specify that empty return to the terminal or home base of operations can be done before that 10-hour break. To wit, from the text of the agency’s declaration of the expansion of the original emergency suspension, the “driver may return empty to the motor carrier’s terminal or the driver’s normal work reporting location without complying with Parts 390 through 399.”
How to log an emergency-relief load or series of loads?
If you’re using paper, by the letter of the law you might just “throw the logbook away” so to speak for those loads if you like, though records of your time hauling emergency freight may well be useful in future in a variety of ways, including in the event of a future audit of business records to document the exempt hauling sufficiently, back-up for an IFTA audit, and the like.
Things get somewhat more complicated for those of you using an ELD.
