• Team drivers, by splitting required off-duty time into two separate breaks, can trade off the task of driving and keep the CMV moving right up to the federal 60/70-hour limit.
• The ideal team operation would be 8 hours driving and 8 hours in the sleeper berth followed by 3 hours driving and 3 hours in the sleeper berth or off duty, allowing each driver to get 11 hours driving within a 14-hour period and still get 10 hours of rest.

The federal hours-of-service rules generally do not address team operations in commercial motor vehicles (CMVs), but team drivers are the ones that historically have taken greatest advantage of the split-sleeper option. By splitting required off-duty time into two separate breaks, team drivers can trade off the driving task (one drives while the other sleeps) and keep the vehicle moving right up to the 60/70-hour limit. Under the 60/70-hour limit, a driver of a CMV may not drive after being on duty 60 hours in any 7 consecutive days (or 70 hours in 8 days if the company operates CMVs on each day of the week).

Individual v. team drivers

For an individual driver, the “ideal” use of the sleeper-berth option may be something like five or six hours driving followed by seven or eight hours in the sleeper berth and then another five or six hours driving followed by another two or three hours in the sleeper berth and/or off duty. Thus, with one 7- or 8-hour sleeper period and one 2- or 3-hour break, the 10-hour off-duty requirement has been satisfied and the driver is able to continue driving (albeit with less time available than someone who gets 10 consecutive hours off).

For a team, the same pattern could be impractical. The ideal use for a team (in theory, at least) may be eight hours driving and eight hours in the sleeper followed by three hours driving and three hours in the sleeper berth and/or off duty. That way, each driver in the team can obtain 11 hours of driving within a 14-hour period and still get 10 hours of rest while keeping the vehicle moving.