Yet these hour limits mostly stand for the truck drivers that are working for trucking companies that are not operating with their trucks on a daily basis.
An interesting fact about this on-duty limit is that if the truck driver operates for 60 consecutive hours, he should take off-duty time for 7 consecutive days.
4. On-Duty Time VS Off-Duty Time
Namely, the time that truck drivers are spending on the road, at a plant, at a facility, terminal, as well as the time that they are spending inspecting and servicing the trucks is considered to be on-duty time.
Therefore, as we can see on-duty time includes many more obligations and duties that the truck driver has to do, not only the time that he spends driving on the highways.
When on-duty, truck drivers should pay particularly attention to the hours of service rules, or more precisely they should be careful for the following few things:
- To respect the 11 hour driving limit; Each truck driver is limited to drive maximum 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty;
- After truck drivers come on duty, they are allowed to drive only 14 consecutive hours;
If you think about it, you will realize that the travel time the truck driver spends on getting to his direction, while not performing any driving on the highways, can be also considered as on-duty time.
