Why Truckers Can Now Drive 16-Hour Days as Diesel Hits $6.29 a Gallon

• The federal government is letting fuel truck drivers work 16-hour days instead of 14 for the next 90 days after diesel prices hit a record $6.29 a gallon.
• The waiver, issued by the Department of Transportation on September 16, is meant to speed up gasoline and diesel deliveries amid supply disruptions, but safety researchers warn longer hours raise crash risk.
• Drivers filling up now are paying nearly $2.60 more per gallon of diesel than they were a year ago, a jump that ripples into the price of nearly everything trucked to store shelves.

Why truckers can now drive 16-hour days as diesel hits a record

Diesel just hit its highest price on record in the United States, and the federal government’s response was to let the drivers hauling it work longer hours to get it to the pump faster. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced on September 16 that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is temporarily loosening its hours-of-service rules for drivers hauling gasoline and diesel, allowing them to work up to 16 hours in a 24-hour window instead of the usual 14. The waiver runs for 90 days.

The move is a direct response to price pressure that every driver in the country is already feeling at the pump. The national average diesel price hit $6.29 a gallon this month, according to the Energy Information Administration, up from $3.74 a gallon a year ago. That is an increase of nearly $2.60 a gallon, or close to 70%, in twelve months, a jump steep enough to ripple through freight costs and, eventually, the price of anything that arrives on a truck.

What the waiver actually changes

Under normal federal rules, commercial truck drivers are capped at 14 hours of on-duty time within a 24-hour window, with a maximum of 11 hours actually spent driving. The new waiver raises that on-duty ceiling to 16 hours specifically for drivers transporting gasoline and diesel fuel, giving carriers more flexibility to move fuel shipments without running afoul of federal limits. Drivers still have to take required rest breaks, and the rule includes a safeguard allowing any driver who needs immediate rest to take 10 consecutive hours off duty before resuming work, regardless of how the extended window is being used elsewhere in the fleet.

Not every trucking company qualifies. Motor carriers operating under a conditional safety rating, meaning federal regulators have already flagged them for compliance issues, are excluded from the waiver entirely. That carve-out is meant to keep the flexibility limited to carriers with a clean enough safety record that regulators are comfortable extending their drivers’ hours, rather than opening the door to every fuel hauler regardless of track record.

This is not the first time federal regulators have turned to an hours-of-service waiver in the middle of a fuel supply crunch. Similar temporary relief has been granted in past years around major hurricanes, when regional fuel shortages made rapid resupply the priority, and after severe winter storms disrupted pipeline and rail delivery in parts of the country. What sets this waiver apart is that it is tied to a nationwide price spike rather than a single storm or regional event, which is why it applies to fuel haulers across the country rather than a handful of affected states.

Why regulators are worried about fatigue

Extending driver hours is not a decision regulators make lightly, and the safety research behind hours-of-service limits explains why. Federal studies sponsored by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and NHTSA found that driver fatigue is tied to roughly 13% of all truck crashes, and separate research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that drivers behind the wheel for more than eight hours are twice as likely to be involved in a crash compared with drivers on shorter shifts. Other studies have found that driving while fatigued produces cognitive and motor-skill impairment comparable to driving under the influence of alcohol.

Those numbers are part of why hours-of-service limits exist in the first place, and why any extension draws pushback from safety advocates even when officials describe it as temporary and narrowly targeted. The current federal cap of 11 hours of actual driving time within a 14-hour window is itself a compromise reached after years of debate. In 2003, the rule was raised from 10 driving hours to 11, a change that generated controversy at the time and remains a reference point whenever regulators look at loosening the limits further.

What is actually driving diesel prices this high

The Department of Transportation’s own explanation points to short-term supply chain disruptions that are delaying gasoline and diesel shipments to parts of the country, which in turn is putting upward pressure on prices and threatening to slow freight deliveries more broadly. Diesel is uniquely exposed to this kind of disruption. It is not just a consumer fuel. It powers the freight trucks that move groceries, retail goods and construction materials, so a diesel price spike acts like a tax on nearly every physical good moving through the supply chain, not just on drivers filling their own tanks.

Gasoline prices have climbed alongside diesel, with the national average for regular unleaded pushing past $4.40 a gallon this month, its highest level in years. The two fuels do not always move in lockstep. Diesel demand is tied more closely to freight and industrial activity while gasoline tracks personal driving, but both have been rising together in recent weeks, which is part of why the administration chose to act on the hours-of-service rule specifically rather than a narrower fix aimed at one fuel alone.

What this means for everyday drivers

Most drivers will never haul a load of fuel themselves, but the waiver still touches their daily routine in two ways. First, any relief it delivers at the pump depends on whether faster fuel deliveries actually translate into more supply reaching local stations, which is not guaranteed and will likely vary significantly by region. Second, drivers sharing the highway with fuel tankers over the next 90 days are sharing the road with drivers who could be working longer shifts than usual, which is worth keeping in mind when following a tanker truck, especially late in its driving window when fatigue is most likely to set in.

Drivers looking to soften the impact of higher diesel and gasoline prices on their own budget have a few practical options. Comparing prices across apps like GasBuddy or AAA’s fuel finder before filling up can save real money. Prices for the same grade of fuel can vary by fifty cents a gallon or more within the same city. Combining errands into fewer trips, keeping tires properly inflated, and avoiding aggressive acceleration all measurably improve fuel economy, and for households running two vehicles, using the one with better fuel economy for longer trips is a simple way to blunt the impact of a price spike that shows no sign of reversing quickly.

What happens next

The waiver is set to expire after 90 days, putting its end date in mid-December, though the Department of Transportation can extend or modify it if the supply disruptions driving prices higher have not eased by then. Whether the extra driving hours actually bring diesel prices down in a meaningful way will not be clear for several weeks. Fuel markets respond to a mix of refinery output, global crude prices and seasonal demand that a single regulatory tweak can only influence at the margins. For now, drivers can expect elevated prices at the pump to persist, and truckers hauling fuel can expect longer shifts, at least through the end of the year.

Sources:

• U.S. News: US Temporarily Eases Curb on Working Hours for Fuel Truck Drivers
• U.S. Department of Transportation: Secretary Duffy Takes Action to Lower Fuel Costs
• Truck Safety Coalition: What is Driver Fatigue?
• AAA: National Average Gas Prices