HOS Exception Cheat Sheet
The short-haul, adverse driving, and personal conveyance exceptions on a single page. The conditions, the documentation, the limits. Free PDF.
What’s on the sheet
- Short-haul exception (49 CFR 395.1(e)): the 150-air-mile radius rule, the 14-hour limit, the timecard requirement, and the ELD exemption boundary
- Adverse driving conditions (395.1(b)): when a driver may extend the 11-hour and 14-hour limits, what counts as adverse, and the documentation auditors expect
- Personal conveyance: the FMCSA guidance on what qualifies and what does not, including post-shift movement of an empty CMV
- Yard moves and on-duty-not-driving line distinctions that get logged wrong most often
- The 30-minute break rule and the on-duty-not-driving carve-out
- Sleeper berth split-sleep options and the math for using them legally
Who it’s for
New CDL drivers learning the rules. Owner-operators who run mostly local but occasionally extend. Dispatchers who set up loads and need to know whether the driver has hours to complete the dispatch. Anyone whose ELD has flagged an exception they did not know they were claiming.
What you’ll get over email
The cheat sheet PDF immediately, single-page, formatted for cab use. Then a short three-email sequence on the most-cited HOS violations, what supporting documents auditors expect, and a note when the HOS audit-prep template ships.
One important caveat
This sheet is a quick reference, not a substitute for the regulation text. When in doubt, read 49 CFR 395 directly or call FMCSA. Pattern HOS violations are one of the three findings that fail a safety audit, and the rules change, so keep the sheet current with the regulation.
Going further
HOS recordkeeping is part of the larger DOT compliance binder. The Compliance category covers the audit-prep context this cheat sheet sits inside.