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13.5 Sleeper-berth Provision

If you drive a truck that has a sleeper berth, you may use it to get the required off-duty time in several ways. The most common way this is accomplished is to take 10 hours off duty. Of course you will want to get some sleep in the sleeper during that time.

10 Consecutive Hours Off Duty

You may spend time in your sleeper berth to get some, or all, of the 10 consecutive hours of off-duty time. When getting your 10 consecutive hours of off-duty time, what is most important is that you do not go on duty or drive during those 10 hours. At the end of the 10 consecutive hours of combined sleeper and/or off-duty time, your 11-hour and 14-hour limits would completely reset.

The following is a sample log showing a full 10-hour break. In this example the driver has combined both off-duty time and sleeper-berth time in his break. That is perfectly acceptable. One way to think of it is that you want your logs to show what it is that you are doing. If you spend a couple of hours inside the truck stop eating and enjoying some time in the driver’s lounge before you bed down for a good rest, then you would log it like this example.

Split-sleeper-berth Rule

We tip our hat to those of you who have made it this far into learning the HOS regulations - you are a serious student! Congratulations, you are about to get into the “good stuff!”

Earlier when we introduced the 14-hour rule we said, “There are some ways to extend this 14-hour period, but we will get into that later.” Now we are at the point where we want to learn some rules that can be really helpful to a trucker’s productivity. This stuff can be a little confusing, but it is worth the effort to learn it.

The split-sleeper-berth rule is a powerful tool in your time-management arsenal. It not only allows you to satisfy your 10-hour break by dividing it into two different sections of time that equal 10 hours, but it also provides several ways to extend your 14-hour clock. Here are the four main basic points of the rule as it is presented in the FMCSA “green book.”

Split sleeper berth rules:

Before we start slogging through the details, let’s make one thing clear. Only 10 consecutive hours off-duty will fully reset your 11 and 14-hour clocks. You cannot fully reset your 11-hour and 14-hour clocks when utilizing the split-sleeper-berth provision. This is important to understand. You will get back some of your time, but not all. At the same time you will be extending the limit on your 14-hour clock. Confusing? Yeah, we realize it is. We will do our best to try and make it clear.

You have already noticed that one break has to be a minimum of 2 hours while the other must be a minimum of 7 hours. That doesn’t total the 10 hours that are required when you combine the breaks does it? You are on to something there! In order to satisfy that 10-hour total, you could do one break for 2 hours and the other break for 8 hours. Or you could do one break for 3 hours and the other for 7 hours. You can also do any combination in between those two limits as long as the total of your two breaks equals 10 hours. You could do 2 hours and 15 minutes for one and 7 hours and 45 minutes for the other. You have some flexibility here. Any combination within the prescribed limits will work.

Let’s say you have been driving for 4 hours and you are getting a little sleepy. You could find a place to park and take a nap for 2 or 3 hours without it burning up your 14-hour clock. Remember what the rule said? Neither break counts against your 14-hour clock! You can do split-sleeper-berth breaks back to back if needed. You are not limited to how many you may do in a row. Just remember that you will never fully reset your 11 and 14 hour limits until you take a continuous 10 hours off duty.

Let’s dig into this “taking a nap” scenario a little deeper. A driver started his day at 1 a.m. He logged 15 minutes on duty for a pre-trip inspection, and got on the road at 1:15 a.m. After driving 4 hours he began to feel unsafe because he was getting really sleepy. He finds a place to park, puts himself off duty at 5:15 a.m., and then takes a nice 2.5-hour nap. What happens to his 14-hour clock? The rules say that a 2 to 3-hour break doesn’t count against it. When he started this day at 1:00 a.m. his 14-hour clock was going to run out at 3:00 p.m. That 2.5-hour nap now extended his 14-hour window to 5:30 p.m. He wakes up refreshed and ready with more time in his day to accomplish what he needs to. He doesn’t have to feel rushed under the pressure of the clock. He gets to control the clock as opposed to the clock controlling him.

There's a world of opportunities once you understand how to use these rules, but you’ve got to make sure you understand them so you can log them properly. You don’t want to get yourself in a bind with your logs.