Written and reviewed by Josh Kohanim, Esq., California Bar No. 328609 · Reviewed
In this guide
A commercial truck crash in Los Angeles County often raises the question whether the driver had been awake and moving too long. The answer lies in the federal driving limits and the records that prove a violation, and a proven violation changes a California injury claim. A truck driver's own injury claim starts with workers compensation. Our Los Angeles truck accident lawyer page covers the claim from the crash through the settlement.
How long a trucker can legally drive
Hours of service are the federal caps on how long a commercial driver may drive and how long that driver may stay on duty. The record of those hours is a record of duty status, still called a log. Since December 18, 2017, most drivers have had to keep it on an electronic logging device wired to the truck under 49 CFR 395.8(a)(1). The table below is the property-carrying rulebook, which covers tractor-trailers, tankers, dump trucks and most box trucks.
| Rule | Limit | Regulation |
|---|---|---|
| Off duty before driving | 10 consecutive hours | 49 CFR 395.3(a)(1) |
| Daily window | 14 consecutive hours after coming on duty | 49 CFR 395.3(a)(2) |
| Driving inside that window | 11 hours | 49 CFR 395.3(a)(3)(i) |
| Break | 30 consecutive minutes after 8 hours of driving | 49 CFR 395.3(a)(3)(ii) |
| Weekly ceiling | 60 hours in 7 days, or 70 hours in 8 days | 49 CFR 395.3(b) |
| Restart | 34 or more consecutive hours off duty | 49 CFR 395.3(c) |
Every number in that table comes from the official text of 49 CFR 395.3. The 14 hour window keeps running through lunch, through a two hour wait at a warehouse dock, and through a stopped hour on the 710 freeway. Only 10 consecutive hours off duty resets it.
What the electronic log records
An electronic logging device, or ELD, takes duty status from the truck itself. It captures engine hours, vehicle miles, date, time and location, which makes it far harder to reshape after the fact than a paper grid.
The retention rules are short, and they are why these cases are decided in the first weeks. Under 49 CFR 395.8(k)(1), a motor carrier, meaning the trucking company, must keep records of duty status and supporting documents for not less than six months from the date it received them. The driver carries only the previous seven consecutive days in the cab, under 395.8(k)(2). 49 CFR 395.22 separately requires the carrier to keep a back-up copy of the electronic records on a device other than the one holding the original.
The paperwork that catches a rewritten log
A log is a claim about where a driver was and when. Every other document the trip generated is a test of that claim. 49 CFR 395.11 requires a driver to submit supporting documents to the employer within 13 days, and it names five kinds.
- Each bill of lading, itinerary, schedule or equivalent document showing the origin and the destination.
- Each dispatch record, trip record or equivalent document.
- Each expense receipt related to on-duty time that is not driving time.
- Each electronic mobile communication record sent through a fleet management system.
- Each payroll record, settlement sheet or equivalent document showing what the driver was paid.
The same rule says what each document must carry: the driver's name or identification number or a unit number, the date, the location including the nearest city or town, and a time. Those four fields are what let us set a fuel receipt beside a log entry that puts the driver asleep in a sleeper berth.
Falsifying the record is its own violation. 49 CFR 395.8(e) states that no driver or motor carrier may make a false report in connection with a duty status, and it forbids disabling, tampering with or degrading the signal of an ELD. That paragraph turns a paperwork problem into a question about what the company knew and allowed.
Fatigue that breaks no hours rule
A driver can sit inside every limit in the table and still be unfit to drive. 49 CFR 392.3 bars operating a commercial motor vehicle while the driver's ability or alertness is so impaired, or so likely to become impaired, by fatigue or illness that operation is unsafe. The same section says the motor carrier may not require or permit that driver to operate.
The second half of that sentence is the one that reaches the company. Dispatch sets the appointment time, the route and what happens when the window is missed. If the delivery time was only reachable by driving through the hours the driver should have been sleeping, the proof sits in the company's own file: the load tender (the document offering the load to the carrier), the fleet messages, and the pay structure that counts miles. That evidence turns one tired driver into a corporate defendant.
Why a violation proves negligence
Negligence per se is the rule that a proven violation of a safety law substitutes for ordinary proof of carelessness. California delivers it through CACI No. 418 in the 2026 Judicial Council of California civil jury instructions. The judge reads the regulation to the jury. If the jury finds that the defendant violated it, and that the violation was a substantial factor in bringing about the harm, the jury must find the defendant negligent.
One defense remains. A defendant may argue the violation was excused, which is CACI No. 420. An hours violation therefore does not end the case by itself. It moves the contest away from whether the driver was careful and toward whether the company can explain its own records.
Where the hours rules do not reach
The federal rulebook is not universal. 49 CFR 390.3(a) applies the safety regulations to employers, employees and commercial motor vehicles that transport property or passengers in interstate commerce. Four situations change what exists to be subpoenaed.
- The short-haul exception. A driver who stays within a 150 air-mile radius of the normal work reporting location and returns within 14 consecutive hours is excused from keeping records of duty status under 49 CFR 395.1(e)(1). The carrier still has to keep time records of the start, the total on-duty hours and the release time for six months.
- Adverse driving conditions. 49 CFR 395.1(b)(1) allows up to two additional hours when conditions the driver could not have known about make it impossible to finish the run safely.
- Light vehicles. A van or box truck rated under 10,001 pounds normally falls outside the definition of a commercial motor vehicle in 49 CFR 390.5, so there is no federal log to demand. Our page on delivery truck and last mile accidents covers what takes its place.
- Purely local operations. A truck that never leaves California and never carries interstate freight raises a threshold question about which rulebook applied. We answer it early, because it decides which records exist.
Whether the driver was over hours
- 1Get the carrier's identity from the report
The collision report names the motor carrier and usually gives its USDOT number. That number is what the rest of the requests are built on.
- 2Send the preservation demand in writing
Name the electronic log file in its native format, the supporting documents under 49 CFR 395.11, the engine control module data, the dashcam and telematics feeds, and the tractor and trailer. Send it to the carrier and to its insurer.
- 3Ask for six months, not for one day
The 60 and 70 hour ceilings are measured across a week, and a habit of edited entries only shows up over months. Six months is the retention floor, so the demand has to reach that far back.
- 4Match the log against the paper
Fuel receipts, dispatch messages, gate records, bills of lading and payroll each carry a time and a place. The log is tested against them entry by entry, and the gaps are the case.
The truck's records answer the question if someone asks in time. Eleven hours, a 14 hour window, a 30 minute break and a six month retention floor are the whole frame.
If a commercial truck hurt you or someone in your family in Los Angeles County, the next step is a call before those records expire, and there is no fee unless we recover. For the layered defendants behind the driver, read who is liable in a truck accident. For what the first months of the case look like, read what a truck accident lawyer does. A fatigue crash at freeway speed often leaves a head injury, and our Los Angeles brain injury attorney page explains how one is documented.