OOIDA Encourages Truckers to Comment on Proposed ELD Rule

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) is reaching out to truckers to encourage them to post comments on a proposed rule to mandate electronic logging devices.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will host an open comment period which was slated to begin at the end of March and last for 60 days.

OOIDA says the proposed rule as written will not improve highway safety, does not fully address the issue of driver harassment and does not fulfill the requirements by Congress outlined in the highway bill.

“The agency must address the serious safety issue of how EOBRs are used to harass and coerce truck drivers into continuing to drive regardless of driving conditions, such as bad weather, congested traffic or simply if the driver is too tired to drive,” said Todd Spencer, OOIDA executive vice president.

“FMCSA has yet to show any direct correlation between ELD use and reduced crashes or any other kind of safety benefit,” said Spencer.

The Association further notes that FMCSA is moving forward with a rulemaking before collecting data from truckers on an important survey of how ELDs enable driver harassment by motor carriers, and while a study,

“Evaluating the Potential Safety Benefits of Electronic Onboard Recorders,” has yet to be completed. “The annual cost of this rulemaking is, by FMCSA’s own numbers, greater than $1.5 billion, yet the actual safety benefit of the proposal represents less than 25 percent of its cost.

According to OOIDA, “the bulk of the savings used by FMCSA to justify their rule comes not from safety benefits, but from the contention that truckers will save 4.5 minutes each per day recording their duty status.”

The group goes on to note that: “Given the fact that trucking is largely a “pay-by-mile” industry and that FMCSA rules already cap the amount of time that a driver can operate a vehicle in a 24-hour period, it is hard to see how such a ‘savings’ should even play a role in the agency’s analysis, much less form the majority of its benefit justification.”

Congress required electronic logging devices to record not only a driver’s driving time, but also record-of-duty status, known as RODS. In the proposed rule, the agency admits there is no known device that is capable of automatically recording a driver’s duty status throughout a work day.

Tags: OOIDA

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