Drivers group: New HOS guidance offers ‘flexibility’

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration revises exemptions on personal conveyance to include laden trucks.    The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration released new regulatory guidance Thursday on the hours of service (HOS) exemptions for agricultural transportation as well as clarity on personal conveyance.
   The guidance is effective immediately and is expected to be posted in the Federal Register next week.
   The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association appeared pleased with the FMCSA’s new guidance, tweeting that “new guidance for ag haulers, personal conveyance promotes flexibility.”
   The new guidance on personal conveyance — the movement of a CMV for personal use while off duty — allows laden trucks to take advantage of the personal conveyance status. “Under the previous guidance, the drivers of many straight trucks were not permitted to operate in an off-duty status for personal conveyance because they were laden,” the FMCSA said.
   The new guidance also defines that personal conveyance is an off-duty status and therefore has no impacts to the 11- or 14-hour limitations for truck drivers, the 10- or 15-hour limitations for bus drivers, the 60/70-hour limitations, the 34-hour restart provisions or any other on-duty status.
   “The movement from a shipper or receiver to the nearest safe resting area may be identified as personal conveyance, regardless of whether the driver exhausted his or her HOS, as long as the CMV is being moved solely to enable the driver to obtain the required rest at a safe location,” according to the FMCSA’s new guidance. The FMCSA also said it recommends the driver annotate on the log if he/she cannot park at the nearest location and must proceed to another location.
   The new guidance concerning the transportation of agricultural commodities is limited to the application of the 150 air-mile exception for the transportation of agricultural commodities.
   The FMCSA explained that it does not address farm supplies for agricultural purposes, since few questions were raised about their applicability, nor does it address the specifics of the definition of an agricultural commodity.
   Although the agricultural exception applies to transportation during the initial 150 air miles from the source of the commodity, regardless of the distance to the final destination, if a driver operates beyond the 150 air-mile radius of the source, the driver is then subject to the limits under the HOS rules and must record those hours.
   The HOS rules continue to apply for the duration of that trip, until the driver crosses back into the area within 150 air miles of the original source of the commodities.
   Unladen vehicles traveling to and from a source of an agricultural commodity can take advantage of the agricultural commodity exception, provided that the trip does not involve transporting other cargo and the sole purpose of the trip is to complete the delivery or pickup of agricultural commodities.
   In regard to the source, the point at which an agricultural commodity is loaded onto an unladen commercial vehicle, the FMCSA said that in addition to being an original source like a farm or a field, the source also can be an intermediate storage or handling location, as long as the commodity retains in its original form and is not significantly changed by any processing or packing.