The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has not proposed an electronic logging device (ELD) that can record a driver’s hours-of-service (HOS) and duty status automatically as required by Congress, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Assn. (OOIDA) told the agency June 26. OOIDA is the lead organization opposing ELDs. Nearly three years ago, it persuaded a federal appeals court to strike down an earlier rule on electronic logs. A year later, language within the MAP-21 legislation directed FMCSA to mandate ELDs and specified the requirement for automatic recording of duty status (RODS).
In its own comments on FMCSA’s supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM), the American Trucking Assns. (ATA) endorsed FMCSA’s plan. It recommended some changes, however, including a longer grandfather period to allow users of existing automatic onboard recording devices—the current federal standard for electronic logs—more time before having to switch to devices meeting the new ELD standard. ATA also recommended a number of steps FMCSA could take to encourage voluntary adoption of ELDs before a mandatory deadline that could be years away. The comment period on the SNPRM ended June 26.
In addition to arguing that FMCSA’s ELD plan fails to meet statutory requirements, OOIDA also questioned how electronic logs are used in actual practice.
“Further, there is a growing body of evidence that state enforcement officials have neither the training nor the equipment to conduct proper inspections of vehicles equipped with ELDs,” OOIDA said. “Today, such vehicles are often waived through the inspection process by officers who are unable to deal with electronic RODS and/or who make the unwarranted assumption that drivers operating vehicles with ELDs must be in compliance with the HOS regulations.” Such assumptions are “demonstrably wrong,” it said.
“FMCSA embarks on this ill-advised program without any evidence that currently available ELDs, which require the manual input of changes in duty status, will provide the slightest improvement over paper logbooks, which also depend upon manual input of such information,” OOIDA said.
OOIDA acknowledged that ELDs can measure driving time, but it argued that they can’t determine compliance with HOS rules any better than paper logbooks. “Nor can they determine whether a driver has had an opportunity to obtain restorative sleep in order to eliminate fatigue.”
OOIDA further questioned the value of measuring driving time alone because “empirical data demonstrates that accidents are far more likely to occur during a driver’s first hour behind the wheel and that the rate of accidents after 11 hours is, by comparison, minuscule. The incremental benefits from the proposed rule cannot possibly justify the costs of this program.”
In its comments, ATA said it’s confident that ELDs will improve compliance with HOS regulations. “Also, FMCSA data generated in 2010 demonstrated a strong correlation between compliance with the hours-of-service regulations (in place at that time) and lower crash rates,” ATA said. It urged FMCSA “to move swiftly to issue a final rule mandating ELD use, but not so swiftly as to make the rule vulnerable to inevitable legal challenges.” The agency must conduct research and analysis to ensure that a final rule is “judicious and defensible.”
ATA recommended that FMCSA go beyond a mandate to consider ways to actively promote voluntary adoption given that a final deadline for installation is several years down the road. Even without delays related to potential litigation, fleets realistically won’t have to install ELDs for at least three years.
