If your property-carrying commercial motor vehicles are equipped with regulation sleeper berths, you will have more options when it comes to complying with the 11- and 14-hour rules. While a sleeper can be used to accumulate the required 10 hours off duty, it can also be used to extend your 14-hour day. In fact, besides the short-haul exceptions, it’s the only way to extend the 14-hour day for most drivers.
A “regulation” sleeper berth is a sleeper berth that complies with 49 CFR Sec. 393.76, Sleeper Berths. You can only record sleeper-berth time on a log grid (Line 2) if the sleeper complies with that regulation.
There are several ways to use the sleeper to your advantage, both to fight fatigue and to stay in compliance with hours-of-service limits. As noted earlier, you can use the sleeper to obtain the required 10 hours off duty by:
1. Staying in the sleeper berth for 10 consecutive hours;
2. Combining consecutive off-duty and sleeper-berth time get 10 hours of rest; or
3. Staying in the sleeper for 10 non-consecutive hours, using two periods of rest. This is the “split sleeper” option, and it can be invaluable for team drivers.
When using the sleeper berth in non-consecutive periods of time to calculate the required 10 hours off (option #3 above), you must follow these basic rules:
• You must accumulate 10 hours of rest in only two chunks of time.
• One of the rest breaks must consist of at least 8 (but less than 10) consecutive hours in a sleeper berth. This break will not count against the 14-hour limit, i.e., it will extend the day.
• The other break must be at least 2 (but less than 10) consecutive hours either in a sleeper berth, 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 sleeper period.
• The driving time in the period immediately before and after each of the two rest periods, when added together, cannot exceed 11 hours.
• You may not drive after the 14th hour after coming on duty (following 10 hours off duty), but when calculating the 14th hour you can EXCLUDE any sleeper-berth period of at least 8 hours. However, you must INCLUDE all other sleeper-berth periods, all on-duty time, and all off-duty time not spent in the sleeper berth.
• If you have 2 qualifying rest breaks that add up to 10 hours (one being at least 8 consecutive hours in the sleeper), then, following the second rest break, hours available under the 14-hour rule are recalculated from the end of the first of the two breaks (note that the 11-hour driving calculation can also be done this way, or as stated above).
The split-sleeper option will be described in more detail below, but let’s look at an example:
After 10 hours off on day 1, John drives for 5 hours and. then enters the sleeper berth (see Figure 15). After 8 consecutive hours in the sleeper, he drives, for 6 hours, reaching the 11-hour driving limit and hour 11 out of his allowed 14- (remember, the 8-hour sleeper period is excluded from the 14-hour calculation, whether he later gets 2 additional hours off or not). He then goes off duty for 2 consecutive hours. At this point, he has accumulated the necessary 10 hours off using two qualifying breaks, so he can start driving again. He does not have another 11 hours of driving time available, however -- he must subtract from 11 the number of hours driven between the two rest breaks (6 hours), leaving 5 hours of driving time. How much time is available under the 14-hour rule? John must count forward from the end of the first of the two breaks (the 8-hour sleeper period) and subtract all time from 14 (except any 8-hour sleeper periods), so he has 14 – 6 - 2 = 6 hours remaining (remember, the 2-hour break always counts against the 14-hour limit).
After doing 5 more hours of driving, John has reached the 11-hour driving limit (and has used 13 out of his 14 hours) so he must either go back into the sleeper for 8 hours or go off duty for 10 hours before doing more driving. He chooses to take 8 hours in the sleeper. Now how much time does he have available? Under the 11-hour rule, he has to subtract from 11 the 5 hours of driving done before his break, leaving 6 hours available. For the 14-hour calculation, he has to count forward from the end of the first of the two breaks that add up to 10 (the 2-hour off-duty period), so he has 14 - 5 = 9 hours remaining (remember, the 8-hour sleeper period can be excluded from the calculation).
After driving for his remaining 6 hours, he must either go off duty (or in the sleeper) for 10 hours or, to return to driving as quickly as possible, take at least 2 hours off duty and/or in the sleeper. In this example, John goes off duty for 10 hours to regain a full 11 and 14 hours.
