- Hours of Service explained
- How HOS are monitored and enforced
- How HOS can impact your freight rates
- Tips for optimizing HOS usage as a shipper
If you’ve ever wondered why your freight can’t legally move nonstop from pickup to delivery, or why your transportation provider might decline a late-afternoon load request, this one’s for you.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) regulates how long commercial truck drivers can be on the road through a set of guidelines known as the Hours of Service (HOS) regulations.
These rules aren’t arbitrary. They exist to reduce fatigue-related accidents and ensure every motor carrier is operating with safety — not just speed — in mind. But for shippers trying to hit deadlines or keep supply chains humming, HOS regulations can feel constraining. The good news? With the right knowledge, they don’t have to.
At Anderson Trucking Service (ATS), we’ve been navigating these federal regulations for decades. Whether it’s planning multi-leg shipments, building carrier-friendly schedules, or educating customers on timing tradeoffs, we understand how HOS compliance shapes the freight world — and how it can impact yours.
In this article, we’ll break down exactly what the HOS rules are, who they apply to, how they're monitored, and what they mean for your freight timelines.
Let’s demystify the drive-time limits and help you ship smarter.
What Are Truck Driver Hours of Service?
Hours of Service (HOS) are the governmental regulations for the number of hours a truck driver can work in a day. HOS are dictated by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), a branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation solely dedicated to the oversight of the trucking industry.
Within their guidelines, the FMCSA uses Hours of Service to dictate the following aspects of a driver’s day:
- Total amount of drive time
- Number and length of breaks
Total Amount of Drive Time HOS Regulations
The following are the HOS restrictions on the total amount of time a driver may be behind the wheel in a set period.
11-Hour Driving Limit: A driver is not allowed to drive any more than 11 hours within a 24-hour timeframe. Additionally, a trucker must precede shifts of this length with a 10-hour consecutive break period.
14-Hour Limit: Drivers who carry freight of any kind are not allowed to be actively “on duty” for more than 14 hours in a day. This 14-hour threshold includes all breaks, delays due to traffic, driving and rest periods a driver experiences while on duty.
60/70-Hour Limit: This limit states that a driver may not drive after surpassing 60 hours of drive time in seven days or 70 hours in eight days. Drivers can only become “on duty” again once they have taken a consecutive 34-hour break.
Number & Length of Driver Breaks
In addition to the amount of drive time allotted to a trucker every day, the FMCSA’s HOS guidelines also outline the number, length and frequency of their breaks as follows:
30-Minute Driving Break: Following a period of 8 cumulative hours of driving, a driver must take a 30-minute break, if they haven’t already done so. This break can be fulfilled by on-duty, non-driving periods of any kind as long as they last for 30 consecutive minutes. (i.e. waiting to be loaded, sitting in a parking lot, etc).
10-Hour Consecutive Break: Every 11-hour driving period must be preceded by a 10-hour consecutive break period.
34-Hour Break: Every driver must actively take a 34-hour break following any period of 60 to 70 hours of driving within 7 to 8 consecutive days, unless the driver is running on "recap hours."
Monitoring and Enforcing HOS
The first federal law mandating truckers keep track of their service hours was passed in 1937. At that time, paper logs and a driver’s word were the only way for the government to oversee their mandates.
Luckily, monitoring a driver’s HOS has gotten significantly less manual in the digital age. What was difficult to track in years past due to the malleable nature of paper tracking has become easier with technological advances.
Today’s truck drivers use in-truck electronic logging devices (ELDs) to track their HOS. On February 16, 2016, the FMCSA passed its electronic logging device mandate, which ordered commercial trucking enterprises to track their HOS using ELDs.
These systems leverage GPS tracking capabilities keep track of drive time, route, and number of breaks, among other information. Using the truck's movements to accurately track a driver's clock ensures compliance with safety regulations and greater visibility into the movement of freight — and helps all parties involved plan more successful shipments.
How Hours Of Service Can Impact Freight Rates
When properly monitored, enforced, and taken into account, a driver's HOS shouldn't influence your freight rates. But when a driver does not properly budget their HOS, costly delays can arise and drive your expenses up.
Imagine a driver with four hours of drive-time remaining before they reach their 11-hour driving limit for the day.
In our experience at ATS, we've found that trucks travel at an average rate of 50 miles per hour. If the driver in question has agreed to move a load 100 miles, that should be quite doable in their remaining four hours of drive time.
Now imagine that the same driver arrives to pick up that freight, but finds the loading dock badly backed up with trucks. They end up waiting two and a half hours in line — during which their clock does not stop — at which point they can no longer legally haul that load that day.
What happens next is unfortunately a tale as old as time (or at least since HOS became the law of the land): The 10-hour consecutive break rule kicks in, forcing the driver to wait 10 hours while their clock resets.
This inconveniences the driver, who had likely planned out their next few loads based on the timing of a now-delayed delivery, as well as the shipper, whose timelines have been unexpectedly extended.
The transportation industry has a rule of thumb: the more urgent the freight, the higher the rate.
That's why delays like the one we've imagined here can end up costing the shipper a pretty penny as they scramble to find a last-minute shipping solution and meet their original deadlines.
Tips for Optimizing HOS as a Shipper
As a shipper, it may be frustrating to hear that a driver's time management skills (or lack thereof) can have such a powerful impact on the timely movement of your critical freight.
While there's plenty in the transportation that is out of your hands (traffic, weather, the economy, international trade — we could go on!), there are some factors that are in your control.
When you keep HOS regulations in mind as you plan and execute your freight strategy, you empower drivers to make the most of their hours, which ultimately leads to smoother relationships and more on-time deliveries.
Here are some ways you can help drivers optimize their HOS and keep your freight moving seamlessly:
- Be prepared. Make sure your team is aware of driver arrival appointments/windows, prep freight for loading in advance, and have paperwork on hand when your truck shows up.
- Be specific. When you're arranging transportation, be particular about the details. Give your provider the exact dimensions of your freight, any unique specifications, and your honest timeline expectations. That way, when your truck arrives, there's no surprises.
- Be communicative. Throughout your freight's journey, prioritize clear, proactive communication with your transportation provider and driver. If there's any unexpected backups at your dock, inclement weather, nearby road closures, or sudden lack of personnel available to handle the freight at pick-up and delivery, call your provider right away.
Related: How Many Miles is a Truck Driver Allowed to Drive in One Day?
Industry Knowledge = Shipping Power
Now that you have a better grasp on what HOS means, how HOS is monitored and how HOS can influence shipping rates, you’re ready to continue your shipping journey.
While hours of service restrictions may seem . . . well, restrictive, ultimately they're meant to keep drivers, freight, and the motoring public safe during freight transportation.
That means understanding of HOS regulations and doing what you can to help truckers optimize their hours isn't just in your business's best interest — it's in everyone's best interest.
If you're looking for additional tips on ensuring your drivers' HOS math works out in your favor, check out our article on Same-Day Shipping.
In it, we dive deeper into the "more urgent = more expensive" equation and offer four tips for speeding same-day shipments on their way more successfully.
These best practices complement the advice we've given you here, so they're ideal next additions to your shipping strategy tool belt!
