New Jersey Intrastate ELD Rules and Hours of Service

A state that pulls the federal safety rules into its own code for intrastate carriers can pull the driving limits in with them. New Jersey did not. The State Police adopted the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations at N.J.A.C. 13:60 and then rewrote exactly five things inside them. Three of the five are the driving clock. The electronic logging device rule is not one of them. A New Jersey intrastate driver runs a longer legal day than an interstate driver and records it on the same mandatory device.

That combination is the whole story of this page, and it is worth being precise about, because a device set to the wrong ruleset will either alarm on a legal hour or stay quiet through an illegal one.

What New Jersey adopted, and the clause that keeps it current

N.J.A.C. 13:60-2.1(a) adopts and incorporates by reference 49 C.F.R. Parts 40, 325, 350, 355, 380, 382, 383, 384, 385, 387, 388, and 390 through 398, inclusive, together with Appendices F and G to Subchapter B. The Superintendent of the State Police did it under the authority at N.J.S.A. 39:5B-32, and the State Police date the adoption to February 5, 2015 on their own FMCSR adoption FAQ. The section text carries an amendment note of 50 N.J.R. 840(a), effective February 5, 2018.

Here is the clause that does more work than the list. Subsection (c) says supplements and amendments to the federal regulations that were adopted as final rule action and became effective after October 1, 1996 are incorporated as if set forth in full, and are not listed among the state's modifications. Federal rulemaking lands on New Jersey intrastate carriers on its own schedule, with no separate state rulemaking in between. That clause is how the December 2015 electronic logging device final rule arrived here.

Chapter scope comes from 13:60-1.2. The rules reach every motor carrier and driver involved in commercial motor vehicle transportation in interstate or intrastate commerce, or wholly within a municipality or a municipality's commercial zone. The one carve-out is a farm vehicle registered under N.J.S.A. 39:3-24 and 39:3-25 that operates intrastate or wholly within a municipality or its commercial zone, does not transport placarded quantities of hazardous materials, and does not display hazardous materials placards.

The floor is 10,001 pounds, not 26,001

The federal compatibility rule at 49 C.F.R. 350.305(a) hands states an easy out. A state may exempt an intrastate commercial motor vehicle from all or part of its safety rules when the vehicle does not reach 11,801 kg (26,001 pounds), unless the vehicle is placarded for hazardous materials or is designed or used to transport 16 or more people including the driver. That permission is where a 26,001-pound intrastate threshold comes from when a state has one. New Jersey declined it.

N.J.A.C. 13:60-2.1(d)1 rewrites the 49 C.F.R. 390.5 definition instead. For intrastate commerce a commercial motor vehicle in New Jersey is any self-propelled or towed motor vehicle used on a highway to transport passengers or property when the vehicle:

• has a gross vehicle weight rating, gross combination weight rating, or registered weight of 4,536 kg (10,001 pounds) or more, whichever is greater;
• is designed or used to transport more than 8 passengers including the driver for compensation;
• is designed or used to transport more than 15 passengers including the driver and is not used to transport passengers for compensation; or
• transports hazardous materials in a quantity requiring placarding, or displays a hazardous materials placard.

The State Police print the same definition on their adoption FAQ, which is the enforcing agency agreeing with the code. Set that number next to the rest of your New Jersey paperwork and it sits low. A 12,000-pound straight truck that never leaves the state is inside hours of service and inside the record-of-duty-status rule, well under the weight most other state credentials turn on. The New Jersey intrastate authority page covers what else follows that vehicle, and the New Jersey DOT number page covers the registration the same chapter demands.

Speaking of which, 13:60-2.1(d)2 is the second modification: it rewrites 49 C.F.R. 392.9b(a) so that a commercial motor vehicle providing transportation in intrastate commerce must not be operated without a USDOT registration and an active USDOT number. New Jersey issues no state carrier number of its own, so the federal number is the number.

The clock, side by side

The remaining three modifications are 13:60-2.1(d)3, (d)4 and (d)5, and they replace three paragraphs of 49 C.F.R. 395.3 for intrastate operation. Everything else in Part 395 runs at its federal text.

The New Jersey window row is worth reading in full, because it closes the door the extra hours might seem to open: a driver may drive only during a period of 16 consecutive hours after coming on duty following 10 consecutive hours off duty, and may not drive after the end of that 16-consecutive-hour period without first taking 10 consecutive hours off duty. The window still runs on wall-clock time. Two more hours of it, not a pause button.

The 10-hour reset and the 30-minute driving break sit in paragraphs the state never touched, so they match the federal rule described on the hours of service page exactly.

One footnote for anyone reading the rule text itself. New Jersey names 49 C.F.R. 350.341(e)(1) and (e)(2) as the federal variance it is using. Part 350 was later restructured into the MCSAP and High Priority Program part and 350.341 no longer exists as a section number. The current counterpart is 350.305(d)(1) and (d)(2), which permits the same 12-hour driving limit inside a 16-hour on-duty ceiling and the same 70-in-7 and 80-in-8 weekly prohibitions. The cross-reference is stale. The variance it points at is not.

The ELD requirement is adopted word for word

Section 395.8 is absent from the modification list, so it applies as written. Paragraph (a)(1)(i) requires a motor carrier operating commercial motor vehicles to install and require each of its drivers to use an electronic logging device to record duty status in accordance with subpart B of Part 395, no later than December 18, 2017.

The four ways out of that are federal, and they are the ones listed in 395.8(a)(1)(ii): a driver who completes a record of duty status on not more than 8 days in any 30-day period, two driveaway-towaway situations, and a vehicle manufactured before model year 2000. New Jersey adds none of its own and subtracts none. The national ELD mandate page walks through each of them, and the FMCSA registered device list is where you confirm a device is still registered.

Put the two halves together and the practical job is configuration. The hours running on that device are 16 and 12 and 70 or 80, not 14 and 11 and 60 or 70. A device left on the federal interstate ruleset will call the 15th hour a violation when the state allows it, and it will stop counting at 11 driving hours when the state allows 12. Ask the vendor for the New Jersey intrastate ruleset by name before the first load, not after the first roadside inspection.

The short-haul exception still stops at 14 hours

Section 395.1 is untouched as well, which sets up the trap on this page. Paragraph (e)(1) releases a driver from 395.8 and 395.11 when the driver stays within 150 air miles of the normal work reporting location and returns to it and is released from work within 14 consecutive hours.

Read those two numbers together. New Jersey hands an intrastate driver a 16-hour window. The short-haul exception ends at 14. A local fleet that leans on short-haul for its paperwork relief and then uses hours 15 and 16 has lost the exception for that day, and the day needs a record of duty status like any other. The extra two hours the state grants are the exact two hours that cost you the paper release.

Which clock your run is actually on

All of this is written for intrastate commerce, and 49 C.F.R. 390.5 decides what that means. The federal definition of interstate commerce includes transportation between two places in the same State as part of trade, traffic, or transportation originating or terminating outside the State or the United States. Intrastate commerce is whatever that definition does not describe.

So a trailer moving from a Port Newark container to a Camden warehouse can be an interstate run, even though both ends have New Jersey addresses, if the freight came in from outside the state or is headed out of it. Interstate runs sit on 14 and 11 and 60 or 70. The state variance never reaches them. Carriers that mix both kinds of work in a week are the ones that get this wrong, and the mix is what the driver's device has to be told about.

The 26,001-pound rule you will still see quoted

Search this topic and you will find the older New Jersey answer, usually from a logbook vendor: the provision of Section 395.3 does not apply to intrastate drivers of commercial motor vehicles weighing 26,001 pounds or more, with a pointer to 49 C.F.R. 350.341(e) for their hours. That text was real. It lived in the chapter's appendix.

The chapter contents now list that appendix as repealed. The operative modifications moved into the rule itself at 13:60-2.1(d), and they apply from the 10,001-pound intrastate definition upward rather than from 26,001. A carrier reading the old text would conclude that a 20,000-pound truck falls outside the intrastate hours rule. It does not, and neither does it fall outside 395.8.

Two practical consequences. First, check any state-by-state ELD chart you rely on against the chapter contents before you trust its New Jersey row. Second, if you sized a fleet policy around 26,001 pounds, the trucks between 10,001 and 26,000 need the same clock and the same device as the ones above it. The state-by-state intrastate authority comparison is where the rest of the state-by-state picture sits.

FAQ

Does New Jersey exempt intrastate drivers from the ELD rule?

No. N.J.A.C. 13:60-2.1 adopts 49 C.F.R. Parts 390 through 398 by reference, and the chapter's modification list at 13:60-2.1(d) touches only the commercial motor vehicle definition in 390.5, the USDOT number rule in 392.9b(a), and three paragraphs of 395.3. Section 395.8, the record-of-duty-status section carrying the electronic logging device requirement, is not on that list, so it applies to intrastate drivers exactly as the federal government wrote it. The only routes to paper are the four federal cases in 395.8(a)(1)(ii) and the short-haul exception in 395.1(e)(1).

Can a New Jersey intrastate driver really drive 12 hours?

Yes, inside a 16-hour window that starts when the driver comes on duty after 10 consecutive hours off. N.J.A.C. 13:60-2.1(d)3 and (d)4 replace the federal 14-hour window and 11-hour driving limit for intrastate operation, and (d)5 replaces the weekly limits with 70 hours in 7 consecutive days, or 80 hours in 8 consecutive days when the carrier runs commercial motor vehicles every day of the week. The 10-hour reset and the 30-minute driving break are untouched and run at their federal text.

Where does the 26,001-pound New Jersey ELD exemption come from?

A repealed appendix. The chapter's old appendix suspended Section 395.3 for intrastate drivers of vehicles at 26,001 pounds and above and pointed to 49 C.F.R. 350.341(e) for their hours. The chapter contents now list that appendix as repealed, the modifications sit in the rule itself at 13:60-2.1(d), and the intrastate commercial motor vehicle definition starts at 10,001 pounds. Guidance still quoting 26,001 pounds is quoting text New Jersey no longer publishes.