We’re firing up T. Dills Trucking again for a run between the Midwest and the Mid-South and back again. The goal? To illustrate the way the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s revised hours rule is expected to work come this September.
Sept. 29, to be exact, when drivers will be able to use the split sleeper cycle with the expanded 7/3 option — as it is now, splits can only go up to 8/2. For my money, and you’ll see why in these examples, however, the most significant change here is that the shorter period in the split will “stop” the 14-hour clock; that is, you can exclude that period from calculation of the rolling 14 on-duty clock.
That can deliver a significant flexibility dividend.
The following example, through the third day, hews very closely to my prior how-to on split-sleeper logging, crafted almost two years ago in response to a reader question. For reference, you can pull up that old story at the following link:
By the third and fourth days, however, things change in effort to illustrate how the rule allows for the single-day off-duty pause that so many in the audience were looking for as FMCSA mulled over OOIDA and Trucker Nation petitions, and so many of your own suggestions to them.
