The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced on August 28 that it is seeking public comment on a proposed pilot program to allow additional hours of service (HOS) regulatory relief by allowing participants to pause their on-duty driving period with one off-duty period up to three hours. 

The off-duty break would need to be for at least 30 minutes, but not more than three hours, and would pause a truck driver’s 14-hour driving window, provided the driver takes 10 consecutive hours off-duty at the end of the work shift. 

The pilot would be limited to a select pool of commercial driver’s license (CDL) holders and would be scheduled to operate for three years or less. The pilot program would seek to gather data on whether these further HOS flexibility changes can be aligned with employers’, shippers’, and receivers’ scheduling preferences to optimize productivity and safety performance. The FMCSA is accepting comments on the proposed pilot for 60 days following publication of the notice in the federal register.