The HOS pilots were announced in 2025. The 2026 note is the pre-test, not a second rule

What the notice actually said

Two dates sit on the same study, and mixing them is how a customer starts asking for “Duffy’s new hours” on a live Chicago pickup. September 15, 2025 is the day FMCSA named the pilots. August 2026 is the day the agency talked about small pre-tests. Neither date rewrites the log in the truck this Monday.

This is the quality-of-life announcement — the parent of the later pre-test note. FMCSA said both pilots sit inside the Pro-Trucker Package and EO 14286. Split Duty collects data on whether a legal pause for detention, weather, or a dock wait can keep or improve safety. Flexible sleeper tests rest pieces that are not limited to the familiar 8/2 and 7/3.

The design numbers from this release still matter for anyone who only skimmed a headline. The pause, if the study ever becomes a rule, is no less than 30 minutes and no more than 3 hours. Protocol work was slated for early 2026. The full design pointed at more than 500 drivers. Pre-tests, when they ran, used nine per program. That shrink from hundreds to nine is how you know you are still in methods, not in a national exemption.

If you already read our 2026 pre-test article, this page is the origin story. It is not a second exemption and it is not a reason to split sleeper however you like on a Motive ELD. Current Part 395 still governs unless a driver is actually enrolled in an FMCSA pilot.

Enrollment does not run through our hiring form. The agency inbox for the study is [email protected]. Our inbox is a quote, a hire, or a dock that will not start on time.

What it changes on Monday

Today’s log is still Part 395. If a customer cites “new hours” from a 2025 headline, send them this page and the August 2026 follow-up. Two dates, one study, zero new clock on a live Chicago pickup. We will not rewrite appointment math because a launch presser named a pause that is not in the CFR yet.

What a quote actually does this week: we still count the 14-hour window as closed unless a specific exception already in the rulebook applies. Detention still burns clock. A weather hold still burns clock. Deferred loading is how we keep a late dock from becoming a false on-time promise. See deferred loading when the shipper is the variable.

Drivers asking whether they can “run the new split” because they saw a 2025 clip: not on our trucks, not as a freelance experiment. If FMCSA later opens a full pilot and safety wants the paperwork, that is a compliance decision — not a dispatch dare. Until then, the ELD is set to the current rule.

Read the sequel before you argue with the first chapter: the 2026 pre-test desk note. If you need a truck rather than a study citation, dry van is the freight conversation.

What we will — and will not — do

We will not sell a pilot as a service line. We will quote a window we can run on the current clock, and we will pass when the empty and the hours do not meet. That is the same sentence we used before September 15, 2025.

We will not enroll a driver in an FMCSA study through the Pride USA hiring form, and we will not tell a shipper the 14-hour “pauses now” because a headline used the word flexibility. If a future rule lands with an effective date, we will put that date here the way we put a pickup window on a rate confirmation.

Desk phone is +1 (847) 702-8181. For a seat, start at Drive With Us. For the study, write FMCSA — not us.