The Federal Motor Service Security Administration (FMCSA) is shifting nearer to launching a pilot program that would ends in amending break up sleeper berth necessities, with an eye fixed on permitting extra flexibility in how a driver spends the required every day minimal of 10 hours off-duty.
In a Federal Register discover launched Wednesday, FMCSA opened the “data assortment actions” that would supply it with information on whether or not a change within the 10 hours break up, which now permits solely 10 consecutive hours, or an 8-2 break up or a 7-3 break up, would meet security objectives if it was 5-5 or 6-4. These new splits would grow to be attainable if the minimal size of the required sleeper berth interval drops to 5 hours from seven.
This system wants as many as 256 volunteers to take part. It may be a staff of drivers. Drivers will obtain $1,600 for his or her participation, in accordance with a press launch printed by the Division of Transportation in late August.
As FMCSA mentioned in a September 2025 Federal Register discover that first known as for feedback on the proposal, the present regulation says the ten hours of off responsibility time “might both be amassed consecutively, or alternatively, break up into 1 consecutive interval of at the very least 7 hours within the sleeper berth and a second interval of at the very least 2 consecutive hours of time within the sleeper berth, off responsibility time, or any mixture thereof, offered that the overall of the durations is at the very least 10 hours. In follow, this enables drivers to make the most of any break up of sleeper berth time together with and between a 7/3 break up and an 8/2 break up.”
The September 2025 discover was extra detailed on the difficulty, and was described as a “notification of proposed pilot program; request for feedback.” The discover Wednesday was simply described as a “discover and request for feedback.”
Following up on the April 2025 EO
The April 2025 government order on trucking from the Trump administration that was notable principally for its English language proficiency necessities and restrictions on non-domiciled CDLs additionally had in it a normal purpose for the Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy to “determine and start finishing up further administrative, regulatory, or enforcement actions to enhance the working circumstances of America’s truck drivers.”
Within the Federal Register recap of the steps which have led to the pilot program, FMCSA mentioned the experiment could be a part of that decision to motion.
The pilot program entails taking these 256 business motorcar drivers and giving them flexibility over 16 weeks to spend their 10 off responsibility hours within the sleeper berth as they select. Individuals within the examine are volunteers.
Chris Eckhart, a companion with the trucking-focused Scopelitis regulation agency, mentioned the Federal Register discover this week is the comply with to the September 2025 discover which sought touch upon the break up sleeper berth proposal with the purpose of looking for flexibility for drivers.
“The discover printed Wednesday requests feedback on the data assortment the FMCSA will search by way of the pilot,” Eckhart mentioned in an electronic mail to BigRig. “I don’t assume it breaks any new floor on the FMCSA’s plans for the pilot or different potential modifications to the split-sleeper berth rule.”
The remark interval is open till December 7.
Not a fast course of
Though the precise testing of drivers and their every day submissions on their actions is scheduled to go on for 16 weeks, the September 2025 announcement of this system mentioned your entire pilot program would take 34 to 36 months.
The Federal Register discover recaps the lengthy tortuous highway to the launch of the examine.
It cites a joint submission by the American Trucking Associations and the Minnesota Trucking Affiliation to FMCSA in 2013 for what the 2 teams known as a “versatile sleeper berth pilot program.” That got here after three FMCSA listening classes on the difficulty in 2010.
When the Hours of Service rule was applied in 2011, in accordance with the Federal Register discover, the break up sleeper berth past 7-3 was not included. “FMCSA decided that the difficulty needs to be explored in larger depth to find out whether or not further flexibility would obtain an equal or improved degree of security relative to compliance with the present laws,” the Federal Register discover this week mentioned.
Within the September 2025 Federal Register discover, FMCSA mentioned a evaluate of the difficulty carried out in 2015 “prompt that sleep break up into a number of segments is restorative, and when applied strategically, doesn’t negatively affect efficiency. Additional, break up sleep doesn’t negatively have an effect on daytime ‘‘neurobehavioral efficiency’’ when in comparison with a consolidated sleep interval of the identical whole length.”
OOIDA checks in
Lewie Pugh, government vp of the Proprietor Operator Unbiased Drivers Affiliation (OOIDA), mentioned his group is “at all times in favor of extra hours of service flexibility for the motive force.”
Pugh mentioned the size of time that the difficulty of a break up sleeper berth HOS flexibility has been mentioned.
He mentioned OOIDA “was pushing for the three hours again in 2018,” he mentioned. However a key characteristic must be that using these hours are on the driver’s discretion.
What OOIDA doesn’t need, he mentioned, is “both the service or the shipper saying, hey, you bought an additional three hours? Simply go off close to no matter, and use that additional three hours whereas we jack you round to load you.”
Pugh’s dialogue of management and driver discretion is one which his group has been sounding since quickly after the September 2025 Federal Register discover.
Eligibility to take part as a driver within the examine is not going to be out there to drivers with an inventory of a number of disqualifying marks, together with having an “unsatisfactory” score from FMCSA, having an Out of Service (OOS) price greater than the nationwide common. Eligible drivers additionally cannot have had any FMCSA enforcement actions within the final three years.
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