Hours of Service Explained: The 11, 14, 30-Minute, and 60/70 Rules

Hours of service is the rulebook that decides how long you can legally drive and work, and it trips up new and experienced drivers alike because several clocks run at once and they do not all reset the same way. This guide walks through the core rules for property-carrying drivers in plain language, points to the exact federal regulation behind each one, and shows where a tool on this site can do the arithmetic for you. It is written to be understood, not to be your logbook.

The 11-hour driving limit

The most basic limit is how much you can actually drive. Under 49 CFR 395.3(a)(3)(i), a property-carrying driver may drive a total of 11 hours, but only after first taking 10 consecutive hours off duty (395.3(a)(1)). Those 11 hours do not have to be consecutive; they are a total for the shift. Once you have driven 11 hours, you are done driving until you take another qualifying rest, no matter how much of your on-duty window is left.

The 14-hour driving window

Running alongside the 11-hour limit is the 14-hour window, and it is the one that catches people. Under 49 CFR 395.3(a)(2), you may not drive after a period of 14 consecutive hours after coming on duty following your 10 hours off. The word that matters is consecutive. Unlike the driving limit, the 14-hour clock does not stop for meals, fuel stops, or ordinary off-duty breaks. It runs straight through from the moment you come on duty. So you can easily have driving hours left on your 11 and still be barred from driving because your 14-hour window has closed. Watching those two clocks together is exactly what the split sleeper berth planner is built to show.

The 30-minute break

Under 49 CFR 395.3(a)(3)(ii), driving is not permitted if more than 8 hours of driving time have passed without at least one consecutive 30-minute interruption. The interruption is flexible: it can be off-duty time, sleeper-berth time, or on-duty-not-driving time, or a combination. In practice, a half-hour spent fueling and doing paperwork counts, as long as you are not driving for those 30 minutes. The clock that matters here is driving time since your last break, not time since you started your shift.

The split sleeper berth

The sleeper berth provision, 49 CFR 395.1(g), lets you break the required 10 hours off duty into two pieces instead of taking them all at once. To qualify, one period must be at least 7 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth, the other at least 2 consecutive hours off duty or in the sleeper berth, and the two must total at least 10 hours. That is why 7/3 and 8/2 are the pairings drivers talk about. The real payoff is in 395.1(g)(1)(iii): when you complete a valid pair, your 11 and 14-hour limits are recalculated from the end of the first rest period, and the qualifying rest periods do not count against your 14-hour window. In plain terms, a valid split hands you driving time back that a single short break would not. Combinations like 6/4 do not qualify, because neither piece reaches 7 sleeper-berth hours. The split sleeper berth planner draws this recalculation on a timeline so you can see the hours return.

The 60/70-hour rolling limit

The longest clock is the on-duty limit that spans your whole week. Under 49 CFR 395.3(b), you may not drive after being on duty 60 hours in any period of 7 consecutive days, or 70 hours in any period of 8 consecutive days. Which one applies depends on whether your carrier operates every day of the week. This limit counts all on-duty time, not just driving, and it rolls: each midnight, the hours you logged on the oldest day in the window drop off and become available again. Drivers call the nightly tally of what comes back the recap, and the 70-hour/8-day recap calculator projects it day by day.

The 34-hour restart

If you do not want to wait for the recap to trickle your hours back, 49 CFR 395.3(c) lets a 7- or 8-day period end with the start of an off-duty period of 34 or more consecutive hours. Take that restart and your rolling on-duty total begins again at zero: you get the full 60 or 70 hours back at once. The cost is 34 straight hours off duty. Whether a restart or a gradual recap is the better move depends on your week, which is why the recap calculator shows both side by side.

Weight is its own set of limits

Hours are only half of staying legal on the road; weight is the other half. Federal law in 23 CFR 658.17 caps a rig at 80,000 pounds gross, 20,000 pounds on a single axle, and 34,000 pounds on a tandem axle group. When an axle is over, sliding the trailer tandems shifts weight between your drive axles and the trailer, which is often the quickest fix. The axle weight and tandem slide calculator turns your scale ticket into how many holes to slide and which direction, with the reminder that only a certified scale can tell you that you are actually legal, so you must always reweigh.

Putting the clocks together

On any given day you are running the 11-hour driving limit, the 14-hour window, and the 30-minute break rule at the same time, and behind them the 60/70-hour rolling limit governs your week. The safe habit is to know which clock is your binding constraint at any moment, because that is the one that will stop you first. Plan the day with the split planner, plan the week with the recap calculator, plan the load with the tandem calculator, and then confirm everything against your ELD and the scale. These tools exist to make the rules easy to see; the official record is always yours to verify.