For this edition of Overdrive Radio, host Todd Dills is joined by Lee and Lisa Schmitt of Wisconsin. As regular readers may well be aware, Lee's requested as exemption from parts of the hours of service for himself -- it’s the first such exemption request for an individual owner we’ve seen hit the Federal Register and go up for comment, in quite some time, a testament perhaps to the methodical nature of the Schmitts' pursuit of it. It’s not like it's particularly difficult, though, to break through the dam, as it were, of the federal regulatory system, as Lisa notes in the podcast.

Exemption requests and what's required of them are laid in the regs themselves, in 49 CFR 381.310.

Having essentially followed the instructions laid out there, the Schmitts' request was posted to the Federal Register and put up for comment last week, and since then 600 comments have been filed. But there’s been some confusion among some in the Overdrive audience about just what Lee Schmitt is asking for here.

In a word, flexibility -- to use a daily 11 hours’ worth of driving however he sees fit. He asks for exemption from the requirement to take a 10-hour break, from the 14-hour rule daily duty maximum, from the cumulative 60 in 7 days and/or 70 in 8 days duty limitations.

But, crucially, not from the 11-hour maximum daily drive time limits, a fact lost on some readers who didn’t fully engage with the hours of service exemption request’s summary, as Lee notes in the podcast today.

Comments on the exemption request are open through July 11: https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2022-0099

Also in today's podcast: We pause to remember owner-operator Troy Huddleston of Illinois, who passed away unexpectedly June 7. He was just 54 years old, and at the Shell Rotella SuperRigs competition this past weekend, owner-operators there who knew him memorialized Huddleston in a few ways, including by placing a signature of Huddleston's, a black Roadworks ball cap, over their hood ornaments. On the podcast we air for listeners recollections of and tributes to owner-operator Huddleston, with several owners Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole caught up with at the event. Catch a video version of the recollections via this link, if you missed it as yet: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15293098/owneroperators-pay-tribute-to-fellow-owner-friend-troy-huddleston

Our sincerest condolences to Huddleston's family.