Hours-of-Service Violations: The 11, 14, 70 Rule Map and What Triggers OOS

Hours-of-Service is the single most inspected regulation in American trucking. Every Level III inspection is an HOS inspection; every ELD download is an HOS review. HOS violations drive roughly 30 percent of all driver OOS events in the FMCSA dataset. Understanding the four core limits — 11, 14, 30, and 60/70 — is the difference between a clean inspection and a driver parked at the scale.

The four core limits (property-carrying drivers)

11-hour driving limit (395.3(a)(3))

A driver may drive a maximum of 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty. The 11 hours do not need to be continuous, but once they accumulate, the driver must stop driving until another 10-hour rest is completed.

14-hour on-duty window (395.3(a)(2))

A driver may not drive after the 14th consecutive hour of coming on duty, even if the driving time has been less than 11 hours. The 14-hour window includes driving, on-duty not driving, and meal breaks — but not off-duty or sleeper berth time.

30-minute break (395.3(a)(3)(ii))

After 8 cumulative hours of driving without at least a 30-minute interruption, a driver must take a break of at least 30 minutes before continuing to drive. The break can be off-duty, sleeper berth, or on-duty not driving.

60/70-hour limit (395.3(b))

A driver may not drive after 60 hours on duty in any 7 consecutive days (for carriers not operating every day of the week) or 70 hours on duty in any 8 consecutive days (for carriers operating every day). The clock resets after 34 consecutive hours off duty.

The eight most-cited HOS violations

Which combinations trigger OOS

CVSA's Out-of-Service Criteria specifies the exact HOS conditions that require an inspector to place the driver out of service:

• Driving beyond the 11-hour limit by more than 0 minutes — immediate OOS at the moment of discovery.
• Driving beyond the 14-hour window by more than 0 minutes — immediate OOS.
• Driving after 60/70-hour limit — immediate OOS.
• Failure to take the 30-minute break after 8 cumulative hours — OOS after driving continues past the 8-hour mark without a break.
• No log available and no ELD data — 10 hours OOS to reconstruct; driver may not continue until the record is current.
• Material falsification of log (e.g., off-duty time recorded while the truck was actually moving) — immediate OOS plus potential referral for civil penalty.

Sleeper berth provision

A driver can split the required 10 hours off duty into two periods, neither of which counts against the 14-hour window:

• One period of at least 7 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth.
• Another period of at least 2 consecutive hours either off duty, in the sleeper berth, or any combination.
• Combined, the two periods must total at least 10 hours.

The split-sleeper provision resets the 11-hour and 14-hour calculations only when the driver completes both qualifying periods.

Adverse driving conditions (395.1(b))

When fog, snow, ice, or a traffic emergency makes completing a run unsafe within the standard limits, 395.1(b) extends the 11-hour driving limit by up to 2 hours — but only when the condition was not known and could not reasonably have been known at the start of the run. The 14-hour window is also extended. The driver must document the condition in the record of duty status.

Short-haul exception (395.1(e))

Drivers who operate within a 150-air-mile radius of their normal work-reporting location and return within 14 hours are exempt from the ELD requirement and the 30-minute break rule. They must still comply with the 11-hour and 14-hour rules, and the carrier must keep time records for each driver showing start time, end time, and total hours.

The most common compliance errors we see

1. Personal Conveyance abuse. Drivers logging off-duty personal conveyance during what is clearly dispatch-directed movement. Auditors reconstruct with GPS data and issue 395.8(e).
2. 14-hour math errors. Drivers forgetting that meal breaks and fuel stops consume the 14-hour window because they are on-duty-not-driving.
3. Yard moves after 14 hours. Only the Yard Move special status allows movement after the window; it must be configured in the ELD and the facility must be on private property.
4. 30-minute break timing. Drivers taking the break after 9 or 10 cumulative driving hours instead of before 8 — a 395.3(a)(3)(ii) violation even if the total driving does not exceed 11.

Where Deadline Safe fits

Deadline Safe cannot enforce HOS inside the truck — that is the ELD's job. What we do is alert you the moment an HOS violation posts to FMCSA after a roadside inspection. The specific 395 citation, the driver, the inspection date, and the OOS status all land in the Inspection card of the dashboard within 15 minutes of FMCSA receiving the state's report. That gives you a same-day opportunity to brief the driver, file a DataQ if the citation is wrong, and adjust dispatch before the next stop.

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