14 hour rule has me scratching my head

Aint it great!? That is the long and skinny of it. They can be on duty for any number of hours, but can not drive past the 14 hour mark. Without knowing the specifics of the downtime, you're best bet may be a split break, but i'll let someone more knowledgeable than me get into that.

 

Again I'll let someone else touch on the split break, I've never done one and would rather not give wrong advice.

 

Split break (8-2):
If you only drove let's say 6 hrs yesterday leaving you with 5 hrs of undriven time. Then today you took an 8 hr break, you would regain those 5 undriven hours) Then, in order to get the rest of your clock back you'd need to take a 2 hr break which would then give you 6 hrs back (5+6=11) to continue driving. Only works when you didn't run your full clock day before.

 

The 8-2 split requires the 8 hours be done in a sleeper berth. But yeah, in a box truck both drivers go on duty at the same time and must both go off duty for at least 10 hours no more than 14 hours later. The only benefit of having 2 drivers is that when one hits his 11 hour limit the second driver can get behind the wheel until the 14 hour clock expires

 

Yes. Thank you for adding that.

 

Isn't there a provision for a co-driver being allowed to log a certain number of hours off duty while in the passenger seat, or is that only for trucks with sleepers. I've never team'd so I never paid attention to team regulations.

 

Passenger seat does not equal sleeper. A team operation (with sleeper berth) the second driver can legally be in the passenger seat up to 2 hours and still be considered OFF DUTY. In your situation, both drivers start their day at the same time so both have the 14 hour work time, and without a sleeper, the other driver is actually Line 4 ON DUTY NOT DRIVING when in the truck or doing work related things. If that scenario happened where you had OFF DUTY (Line 1) it would not extend your 14 hour clock, but it would also not count against available driving time.

 

As it's non-CDL do you even have to follow the hours of service?.