IT PAYS TO BE SAFE

No. 7, February, 2010
The Split-Sleeper-Berth Rules

In a prior It Pays to Be Safe newsletter, we discussed the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Act's rules regarding a driver's hours of service, which included a reference to the rule on the split sleeper option. At the request of many recipients, this week is the advanced course on logging and the rule pertaining to split time.

Confusion regarding this rule is not surprising as §395.1(g)(C) states:

• Calculation of the 14-hour limit includes all time except any sleeper-berth period of at least 8 but less than 10 consecutive hours; compliance must be re-calculated from the end of the first 2 periods used to comply with the requirements of paragraph (g)(1)(ii)(a) of this section.

Not very helpful, is it? Here's what it means: A driver may accumulate the equivalent of his ten consecutive hours off duty by taking two separate periods of rest, provided that:

• one of the rest breaks consist of at least eight hours (but less than ten) consecutive hours in a sleeper berth (this time period won't count against your 14-hour limit and will extend your day); and
• the other break is at least two (but less than ten) consecutive hours either in your sleeper berth or off duty, or any combination of the two (this break will always count against the 14-hour limit and can be taken either before or after the 8-hour sleep period).

Now that you have 2 qualifying rest breaks that add up to 10 hours as described above, you still do not gain back your full 11 driving hours or your 14 on-duty hours. Instead, your hours available under the 11- and 14-hour rules are calculated by counting forward from the end of the first of the two breaks and then:

• subtracting the number of hours spent driving from 11; and
• subtracting all time from 14, excluding the 8-hour sleeper-berth period.

A real-life example would be for a driver to have completed his consecutive ten hours off. Following that time, he drives for six hours and stops to take a two-hour break, either off duty or sleeper-berth. After the break, he drives for his remaining 5 hours for 11 hours of driving and is now at hour 13 out of his 14 on duty.

To gain back time, the driver may either go off duty/sleeper berth for ten consecutive hours, or because he took a two-hour break already, he can go in his sleeper berth for only eight hours.

If he chooses the eight-hour option, he must start counting from the end of the two-hour break to calculate his hours. So he would have driven five hours since that two-hour break, leaving six hours remaining to drive, and would have been on duty or driving five hours, leaving him nine hours remaining available in on-duty time.

The key to finding time available under the 14-hour rule after a quality break is to count forward from the end of the first of the two breaks.

Utilization of the split-sleeper berth is advanced logging. Following the rules above will keep you in compliance with §395.1 and you'll be rested and ready for the road.