There are rules regarding the hours of service for freight-carrying truck drivers, as part of the regulations governing the industry. The technical details are on that page, but I'll put it into a simpler set of terms here.
11 and 14 hour rules: Once I begin working after a ten-hour break, I can drive up to 11 out of the next 14 hours. After 14 hours, I could continue to work, but not drive. For example, I could continue to unload a truck, finish a DOT inspection, or do any other task required by the job that doesn't involve being behind the wheel.
70 hour rule: After working 70 hours in any eight consecutive days, I can't continue to drive. This is a rolling eight-day period; that is, it's the last eight days, regardless of what the date or day of the week is. Under DOT regulations, I may still do non-driving work; under Schneider's company policy, I can't do any work at all unless it's an emergency. I'll take a sample out of my own logbook - the recap page - for the last few days to further explain this.
| Day | Hours | Previous 8 | Previous 7 | Next Day |
| 4 | 11.25 | 11.25 | 11.25 | 58.75 |
| 5 | 3.5 | 14.75 | 14.75 | 55.25 |
| 6 | 5 | 19.75 | 19.75 | 50.25 |
| 7 | 7 | 26.75 | 26.75 | 43.25 |
| 8 | 6.5 | 33.25 | 33.25 | 36.75 |
| 9 | 7.25 | 40.5 | 40.5 | 29.5 |
| 10 | 8.5 | 49 | 49 | 21 |
| 11 | 11.25 | 60.25 | 49 | 21 |
| 12 | 9.25 | 58.25 | 54.75 | 15.25 |
This is exactly how my actual recap is formatted. In order, the columns are the date, the hours I worked that day, my hours for the previous eight days, for the previous seven, and what I have available (out of 70) for the next day. All I do is copy my hours from my logbook page onto this sheet, then do the addition. Then, after that, I subtract the "previous seven days" number from 70 to figure out how many hours I have left for the next day. So if I were to have worked 10 hours today, I would have this:
| 13 | 10 | 64.75 | 59.75 | 10.25 |
Since the number of hours available is now less than 14, I wouldn't be able to work a full day; I'd be capped at 10 hours, 15 minutes. Basically, I can think of it as picking up the hours I worked eight days ago at midnight; I'll get five hours back at midnight (since the 5th will no longer be one of the last eight days), then tomorrow I'll pick seven hours back up. If you do the math, this means that I can work a maximum of 8 hours, 45 minutes every day without running out of hours somewhere. If I consistently work more, I'll eventually either have to take a shorter day or take a 34-hour restart.
Breaks: A break must be ten hours (or more) spent not working. It doesn't matter if it's off-duty time or spent in the sleeper, but it must be a minimum of ten hours. A 34-hour break is considered a restart; after 34 hours off duty, I have a full seventy hours available again, as if I'd taken the last eight days off. Obviously, I can take more than 10 or 34 hours and still satisfy the conditions; I just have to get back to work in time to make the delivery.
Ultimately, that's about it. I'll cover logging itself another time.
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