Category: DOT

Out With The OLD And In With The ELD

Posted on March 19, 2019 by - AOBRDS, DOT, Driver safety improvement, ELD features, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, FMCSA, HOS, Hours of Service, insurance premiums, Ray Martinez

Since 2017, the ELD mandate has been in effect. In December 2017 fleet owner’s with Automatic On-Board Recording Devices (AOBRDs) installed were given an extension to make the switch from AOBRDs to ELDs up until December 2019. With the new year in full swing the December 16, 2019 expiration date is quickly approaching.

At the 2019 Omnitracs annual user conference, head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Ray Martinez, urged drivers and company representatives to “prepare for this transition, if you have not done so already.”

The most strategic way to avoid procrastination when choosing an ELD is being in the know of what major differences stand between AOBRDs and ELDs.

Key Differences Between AOBRDs and ELDs

For many in the transportation business, the most proposed question that has been asked is, “why?”. The main reason behind the switch is to ensure companies are following the hours-of-service (HOS) law, which controls how much a driver can work in a day, aimed at preventing accidents and harassment of drivers. If someone has yet to make the switch from an AOBRD to a compliant ELD and are waiting to the last minute, the following differences in the two devices may be incentives to make the switch earlier.

Recording Metrics: AOBRDs does a lot of basic recording such as; location, date and time, mileage, engine hours and drive times, as well as duty status. ELDs record the same metrics plus information on the driver/user, motor carrier and vehicle including; log in and log out, engine on and off and also malfunctions.

Locations: When it comes to location AOBRDs allows users to record the change of location during each change of duty status and can be entered manually. With ELDs the location is automatically recorded every 60 minutes, whenever the engine is on or off when there is a change in duty status at the beginning and end of yard moves.

Edit History: AOBRDs record who makes edits and when and does not readily display edit history. ELDs require annotations when edits are made, with automatic events they can not be changed – only annotated and it readily displays edit history to DOT inspectors.

Driving Time: The driving time can only be edited when attributed to the wrong driver with AOBRDs and with ELDs that time cannot be edited.

Benefits of Making the Switch

The most recognizable benefit of the switch from AOBRDs to ELDs is compliance, but outside of ensuring that the trucking industry steers clear of harassment complaints the FMCSA wants to make the job of transporters a lot easier.

Low IFTA Audit Risk

The new ELD technology is driver-friendly when it comes to automatically calculating IFTA reports. The process of filing IFTA reports at the end of each quarter can be burdensome, and the overload of stress can cause human error. With this feature, the risk of facing an IFTA audit is reduced significantly.

Safety Improvement

By notifying drivers and management of malfunction issues and even identifying unsafe driving behaviors, ELDs do a great job at protecting all drivers on the road. According to FMCSA, ELDs help prevents roughly 562 injuries each year.

Lower Insurance Rates

Because of the increase in safety ELDs provide, insurance companies are happy to offer lower
insurance premiums to ELD users. By ensuring drivers stick to HOS regulations ELDs are eliminating the main cause of driver fatigue, which is reported to be at fault for 86% of truck-passenger crashes.

Safer Roads + Fewer Accidents = Lower Truck Insurance

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OOIDA’s ELD Appeal Was Rejected

Posted on June 23, 2017 by - DOT, ELD Benefits, ELD fight, ELD Mandate, ELD negatives, ELD resistance, ELD support, ELDs, OOIDA, OOIDA ELD Fight

No matter which side of the ELD (Electronic Logging Device) mandate you currently stand on, you should brace yourself to comply with the compliance mandate on December 18th, 2017. OOIDA’s appeal has been rejected so it might be time to prepare your truck and fleet to comply.

OOIDA Isn’t Left With Many Options

OOIDA or the Owner-Operators Independent Drivers Association has been trying to fight the DOT to put a stop to the ELD mandate for years now on the grounds that they violate the rights of drivers and their constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures because the rule fails to meet the congresses stipulation for the mandate.

However, the supreme court has refused to hear OOIDAs lawsuit appeal against the DOT rule that will require truckers to use ELDs to track hours of service. Therefore the December 18th, 2017 compliance deadline will remain intact for now.

Although, this doesn’t mean that OOIDA is giving up their fight. They will continue pushing the matter to Congress and the Trump Administration because they highly favor the 4th amendment which protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures.

A Little About The ELD Mandate…

To put it simply, an ELD is an electronic logging device that connects directly to a commercial motor vehicle (CMV) to record the driver’s hours of service. This will make it more difficult to bend the rules and go over the driving limit of 11 hours per day since paper logs and electronic driver logs can easily be faked.

The data that an ELD captures is from the engine including movement, the number of miles driven, location, and hours.

The potential benefits of ELDs for fleets include saving time and saving money as they reduce the amount of paperwork that will need to be processed by eliminating paper logs. However, the benefits for the entire trucking community include saving lives.

FMCSA the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration estimates that 26 lives will be saved and over 1,800 vehicle crashes will be prevented annually because ELDs will reduce driver fatigue by more heavily enforcing compliance to hours of service regulations. 

However, many drivers have concerns about ELDs and do not want them. For example, will drivers and owners of smaller fleets be able to incur the costs of installing these devices in their vehicles?

Plus, they’ll be mounted on the dashboard, taking up valuable space and visibility. Will ELDs actually be dangerous by blocking a part of the driver’s view of the road? Also, will it be distracting?

One major concern is that ELDs will violate the driver’s privacy by recording their personal data. The guidelines as to what will protect the driver’s confidentiality when it comes to determining compliance with hours of service aren’t set in stone yet and that’s worrisome to a majority of drivers.

Are You Ready For The Mandate?

Whether you’re on board for ELDs or totally against them OOIDA has a tough fight ahead of them now. Even though they’ll continue fighting for the rights of truckers, the compliance deadline of December 18th will remain intact. Don’t let this deadline sneak up on you, be prepared to comply with the mandate.

For more trucking blogs visit ExpressTruckTax.com and please share your thoughts on the ELD mandate in the comment section below.