diff --git a/cmd/nvidia-container-toolkit/hook_config.go b/cmd/nvidia-container-toolkit/hook_config.go
index b4cb0133..6a6d18b3 100644
--- a/cmd/nvidia-container-toolkit/hook_config.go
+++ b/cmd/nvidia-container-toolkit/hook_config.go
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ import (
 	"reflect"
 
 	"github.com/BurntSushi/toml"
+	"github.com/NVIDIA/nvidia-container-toolkit/internal/config"
 )
 
 const (
@@ -41,10 +42,11 @@ type HookConfig struct {
 	AcceptDeviceListAsVolumeMounts bool               `toml:"accept-nvidia-visible-devices-as-volume-mounts"`
 	SupportedDriverCapabilities    DriverCapabilities `toml:"supported-driver-capabilities"`
 
-	NvidiaContainerCLI CLIConfig `toml:"nvidia-container-cli"`
+	NvidiaContainerCLI     CLIConfig            `toml:"nvidia-container-cli"`
+	NVIDIAContainerRuntime config.RuntimeConfig `toml:"nvidia-container-runtime"`
 }
 
-func getDefaultHookConfig() (config HookConfig) {
+func getDefaultHookConfig() HookConfig {
 	return HookConfig{
 		DisableRequire:                 false,
 		SwarmResource:                  nil,
@@ -63,6 +65,7 @@ func getDefaultHookConfig() (config HookConfig) {
 			User:        nil,
 			Ldconfig:    nil,
 		},
+		NVIDIAContainerRuntime: *config.GetDefaultRuntimeConfig(),
 	}
 }
 
diff --git a/cmd/nvidia-container-toolkit/main.go b/cmd/nvidia-container-toolkit/main.go
index 13f8197c..81c86572 100644
--- a/cmd/nvidia-container-toolkit/main.go
+++ b/cmd/nvidia-container-toolkit/main.go
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ import (
 
 var (
 	debugflag  = flag.Bool("debug", false, "enable debug output")
+	forceflag  = flag.Bool("force", false, "force execution of prestart hook in experimental mode")
 	configflag = flag.String("config", "", "configuration file")
 
 	defaultPATH = []string{"/usr/local/sbin", "/usr/local/bin", "/usr/sbin", "/usr/bin", "/sbin", "/bin"}
@@ -85,6 +86,10 @@ func doPrestart() {
 	hook := getHookConfig()
 	cli := hook.NvidiaContainerCLI
 
+	if hook.NVIDIAContainerRuntime.Experimental && !*forceflag {
+		log.Panicln("invoking the NVIDIA Container Runtime Hook directly (e.g. specifying the docker --gpus flag) is not supported. Please use the NVIDIA Container Runtime instead.")
+	}
+
 	container := getContainerConfig(hook)
 	nvidia := container.Nvidia
 	if nvidia == nil {