Example: You come to work at 7:00 a.m. You begin driving at 10:00 a.m. and at 2:00 p.m. you spend 8 hours in your sleeper berth. At 10:00 p.m. you resume driving. Those 8 hours in the sleeper berth do not count as part of the 14 hours. This means that you only used 7 of your 14 hours so far, and your 14-hour limit gets extended to 5:00 a.m. the next morning (original 9:00 p.m. limit plus 8 hours). Your driving limit is still 11 hours and so far you have only driven 4 hours. That means you have 7 hours of driving time still available, allowing you to drive from 10:00 p.m. until 5:00 a.m. At 5:00 a.m. you take your second rest period, going off duty for 2 hours. That brings you to 7:00 a.m. Since you met the requirement of getting the equivalent of 10 hours off duty in two periods (2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m.), you now have a new calculation point for figuring your 11 and 14 hours. Your new calculation point is at the end of the first rest period, which was at 10:00 p.m. Your new 14-hour period begins at 10:00 p.m. and ends 14 hours later, at noon the following day. During that new 14-hour period you are allowed 11 hours of driving. From 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. you used 9 of the 14 “new” driving window hours and 7 of the 11 hours of driving time. Therefore you now have 5 hours of driving-window time available during which you are allowed to drive 4 hours. Because your 14-hour driving window ends at 12:00 noon that day, before you can drive a commercial motor vehicle again after 12:00 noon, you must have another rest period in the sleeper berth of at least 8 consecutive hours (if you are using the sleeper-berth exception). After that you must again recalculate how many hours you will have available. Your new calculation point will be the end of the 2-hour off-duty period you took earlier (7:00 a.m.).
Remember that you are allowed to do non-driving work after the 14-hour limit is reached, just no more truck driving (but the additional on-duty time would count toward your weekly 60- or 70-hour limit). Each time you take one of the two required rest periods, you will need to recalculate the on-duty and driving hours available. You could continue using the sleeper-berth regulation and recalculating your hours available until you have 10 consecutive hours off duty. After 10 consecutive hours off duty, you have 11 hours of driving time and a 14 consecutive-hour driving window available again.
This regulation is found in Section 395.1(g).
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