Hours of Service, Driver Fatigue and ELD Proof in Texas Truck Litigation

A clean logbook doesn't clear a tired driver, and a messy one doesn't convict him. Here's how the hours proof gets built in a Texas truck case.

Which hours limits applied to this trip?

For a property-carrying truck, 49 C.F.R. § 395.3 stacks four clocks on top of each other. Each one points you to a different record.

Waiting at a shipper's dock usually counts as on-duty time under § 395.2, so a four-hour load can eat into the rest a log seems to show.

Expect the defense to reach for one of three exceptions:

• Bad weather or traffic. Under § 395.1(b)(1), unforeseen weather or unusual road or traffic conditions can allow up to 2 extra hours.
• Short haul. Section 395.1(e)(1) covers a driver who stays within 150 air-miles, is released within 14 hours, and has daily time records the carrier keeps for 6 months.
• Split sleeper berth. Under § 395.1(g)(1)(ii), two rest periods have to total at least 10 hours, one of at least 7 hours in the berth and neither under 2 hours.

What should the carrier's ELD production include?

A printout of daily log graphs isn't the record. Ask for all of this:

• every duty-status change, with time, location, engine hours, miles, and driver and vehicle IDs (§ 395.26(b), (c));
• the hourly location points recorded while the truck moves (§ 395.26(d)), because they can show driving during logged rest;
• every edit and annotation, plus the driver's recertification after each one (§ 395.30(b), (c));
• unidentified-driver records for driving with no one logged in, which the carrier must review (§ 395.32);
• bills of lading, dispatch records, receipts, fleet messages, and pay records, the supporting documents that exist to check the log (§ 395.11(c)(1)).

If the carrier hands over log graphs, ask in writing for native data in a named format under Tex. R. Civ. P. 196.4. If it says a stretch of driving was personal conveyance, ask for the annotation the device prompts the driver to enter under § 395.28(a)(2).

How do you test the log against records the driver didn't make?

Here's a hypothetical. A driver hauls steel from Houston to Denton. His log shows berth time from 11:30 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., and the crash happens at 6:40 a.m. Then the outside records come in.

Keep each record's original timestamp beside any converted time. Our posts on what ELD records can prove and logbook audits explain the device side.

Did the driver actually get a chance to sleep?

A log can say "off duty" without saying whether he rested. Ten hours off duty in a loud dock lot doesn't tell you if noise or a knock on the door broke up his sleep, but facility video and his own testimony might. Off duty at home after a long commute doesn't show how much of the break he spent driving his own car. Phone location data can, if it's obtained in discovery. And a 2-hour daytime berth period may not have given any real sleep, which a sleep-medicine opinion based on his schedule can address.

How is the fitness rule in § 392.3 different from an hours violation?

The hours limits in § 395.3 measure clock time on duty and driving. Section 392.3 asks something else: whether fatigue, illness, or another cause made it unsafe to start or keep driving. Both rules bind the driver and a carrier that requires or permits the driving. The hours rules carry several exceptions in § 395.1. The fitness rule has one, for a grave emergency, when the driver may go on to the nearest place the hazard ends.

A fatigue theory also has to fit the physical evidence:

• No braking before a rear-end impact? That may mean he wasn't watching the road, but rule out phone use, brake failure, and a sudden cut-in first.
• A slow drift across the fog line on a straight road? That looks like a microsleep, unless a steering defect, a crosswind, or a work-zone lane shift explains it.

Our guide on using FMCSA rules to prove negligence covers that link.

Texas HB 19 adds two rules for a split trial. Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 72.053(b), a rule violation comes into the first phase only if it tends to prove the violation caused the injury. And § 72.054(c)(1)(G) lets a party show in that phase that the driver of a carrier covered by the federal safety act drove when § 395.3 barred it.

Who can explain the records to a jury?

Four witnesses can walk a jury through the records, and each one gets a pointed question:

1. The driver knows the real trip and his rest. Ask him: "What were you doing at 2:12 a.m.?"
2. The dispatcher set the appointment times. Ask: "When did you learn the load would be late?"
3. The corporate representative speaks for hours monitoring. Ask: "What did your system flag on this driver that week?"
4. The ELD vendor's technician knows how events are created, edited, and exported. Ask: "Does an edit leave the original entry in the data?"

A notice to the company must describe its deposition topics with reasonable particularity under Tex. R. Civ. P. 199.2(b)(1), such as hours monitoring for the driver in the 8 days before the crash. What those witnesses knew often shapes who is liable in a Texas truck accident.

Frequently asked questions

He was over his hours. Doesn't that prove he caused the crash? No. You still need evidence that fatigue or the extra driving played a part in the collision.

His log was clean. Can he still have been too tired to drive? Yes. Section 392.3 bars driving while impaired by fatigue whether or not a clock ran out.

The Texas truck accident litigation hub covers the rest of the evidence.

Texas statutes and cases cited in this article

• 49 C.F.R. § 395.3
• 49 C.F.R. §§ 395.1 and 395.2
• 49 C.F.R. §§ 395.8 and 395.11
• 49 C.F.R. part 395, subpart B
• 49 C.F.R. § 392.3
• Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 72
• Tex. R. Civ. P. 196.4 and 199.2

This article is general information about Texas law, not legal advice about a particular case. Results depend on the facts, the evidence, the court and the law that applies. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.