If you start and end your day at the same yard and stay close to home, the 150 air-mile short-haul exemption can let you skip daily logs entirely. Here's exactly how it works.
The short-haul exemption (49 CFR 395.1(e)(1)) lets a property-carrying driver operate without keeping records of duty status (RODS) — paper logs or an ELD — as long as the day stays inside a tight set of limits. It's meant for local and regional work where you're home every night, not for over-the-road runs.
To use the exemption, every one of these has to be true for the day:
The 2020 HOS rule change expanded this from a 100 air-mile / 12-hour rule to today's 150 air-mile / 14-hour version, so far more local drivers now fit.
When you qualify, you don't keep a RODS and you're not required to run an ELD. You're also exempt from the 30-minute break requirement. Instead, your employer keeps simple time records showing the time you reported, the time you were released, and total on-duty hours each day — kept for six months.
The exemption is day-by-day. Run past the 150 air-mile radius or blow through the 14-hour window even once, and you lose the exemption for that whole day and must produce a log for it. If that happens on more than 8 days in any rolling 30-day period, you're back to needing an ELD. This is different from the broader ELD exemptions and from the agricultural exemption, which work on their own conditions. If you ever do log a full day, the regular Hours of Service rules apply in full.
Even when you qualify for the exemption, you still have to prove it — and the day you slip past 150 air miles or 14 hours, you need a compliant log fast. TruckSpot ELD tracks your radius and your 14-hour clock automatically and starts a proper RODS the moment a day no longer qualifies, so a borderline run never turns into a violation at a scale. See how TruckSpot works →
Stay covered on every borderline day — start for $1 →Air miles are measured in a straight line, so 150 air miles works out to about 172 regular road miles from your normal work reporting location.
If you qualify for the short-haul exemption every day, you don't have to keep records of duty status and you aren't required to run an ELD. Lose the exemption on a day and you must keep a log for that day.
No. Drivers who operate entirely under the 150 air-mile short-haul exemption are not required to take the 30-minute break, though they still must follow the 11-hour driving limit.