Hours of service & ELD

Must-have

• 11-hour driving limit. 14-hour on-duty window. 30-minute break. 60/70-hour cycle.
• ELD required for most interstate CMV work (49 CFR 395 Subpart B).
• Short-haul exception (395.1(e)): stay inside 150 air-miles, return and go off duty within 14 hours, keep time records. Break it more than 8 days in 30 and you need an ELD.
• The ELD instruction sheet / user manual must be in the cab.
• Paper logs still exist for the 8-in-30 exception — that is not ‘no logs.’

The rule

• 49 CFR 395

  Hours of Service of Drivers.

• 49 CFR 395.8(a)(1)(iii)

  Drivers who need RODS 8 days or fewer in 30 may skip the ELD — they still keep RODS on the other days.

• 49 CFR 395.1(e)

  Short-haul / timecard exception. No RODS, no ELD, if every condition is met that day.

What they don’t publish

• Local bumper-pull work inside Tampa can be short-haul. A run to Georgia is not, even if you are home for dinner — check the air-mile radius from your reporting location.
• Dispatchers will tell you ‘hotshot does not need an ELD.’ That is true only inside an exception. The weight, not the word hotshot, decides.
• If you log 9 exception days in 30, day 9 is an ELD day. Immediately.

Official desks

• FMCSA ELD page
• Who is exempt from the ELD rule
• 49 CFR Part 395

• I know my reporting location address
• I know if today is inside 150 air-miles
• ELD registered and in the truck — or I can prove the exception
• ELD manual in the cab
• I can show last 7 days of logs or time records