• When a driver uses the 150-mile-air (or “short-haul”) exception, the motor carrier must maintain certain time records for six months.
• The motor carrier should also keep records for days when a driver doesn’t work, and must have records showing any on-duty time spent with other carriers, as those hours count against the allotted 60/70 hours.
• Short-haul drivers are not required to possess copies of the time records, nor any other documents showing use of the short-haul exception.

For drivers using a 150-air-mile exception (also known as the “short-haul exception”), the motor carrier (employer) must maintain time records for six months showing:

• The time the driver reports for duty each day;
• The time the driver is released from duty each day;
• The total number of hours the driver is on duty each day; and
• For drivers used for the first time or intermittently, the total time the driver was on duty for the preceding seven days.

To ensure compliance with the 60/70-hour rule, the motor carrier must also keep time records for days during which the driver does not work. In other words, the time records must show when a driver has been off duty for an entire day or more (although auditors will normally assume a driver has been off duty if there is no time record for a given day). The employer must also maintain records of on-duty time the driver accumulates with other employers, because those hours count against the allotted 60/70 hours.

Short-haul drivers are not required to have copies of the time records in their possession, nor any other documents showing that they are using this exception (although having such documentation can help speed up any inspections).

Drivers who occasionally need to use a regular log may use paper logs on up to 8 days out of any 30 consecutive days. If a log is required on a 9th day out of 30, the driver likely must use an electronic logging device instead.

Sample time record for short-haul drivers

The following is an example of a time record that may be used for recording time under the short-haul exceptions when a regular log is not required. The record includes spaces to record all required information: the daily start and end times and total on-duty hours.