Electronic Logs or Trucks and Buses Proposed to Improve Efficiency and Safety
17 Mar 2014The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) via the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has proposed requiring all commercial truck and bus companies that operate across state lines to electronically log drivers’ hours through the use of electronic logging devices, sometimes referred to as ELDs.
FMCSA believes the proposed requirement will force compliance with existing regulations concerning the hours drivers are allowed to work.
This is largely encouraged by accident numbers suggesting that many of the crashes involving commercial trucks or buses are the direct result of drivers exceeding the maximum allowable work hours. In many cases, drivers kept two sets of logs or altered their own logs in order to conceal from inspectors the actual numbers of hours they spent behind the wheel.
Electronic logging devices will make it more difficult for drivers to misrepresent the number of hours they drive in a day. FMCSA believes this proposalwill save 20 lives and eliminate as many as 434 injuries each year.
An added benefit to the proposed requirement is that it will ease the recordkeeping burden of
companies that manage and track drivers’ hours.
Concerns for the proposal are getting headlines however as some worry that this law does little to address the way some shippers, receivers, carriers, etc. take advantage of drivers’ time. They believe this doesn’t happen when the drivers are behind the wheel. Rather it happens when drivers are attempting to get the currently required amount of sleep and downtime.
In addition, because the ELD only logs driving time, it doesn’t account for times drivers are waiting at docks, while still “on duty.” In other words, they believe there are some flaws in the policy that might prove punitive to small companies required to invest a collective 1.6 billion dollars into implementing the device without a guaranteed return on the investment.
Electronic logging devices should not be confused with GPS tracking systems and tools. GPS tracking devices ping driver locations at any time, offer two-way communications between drivers and dispatch, and provide alternate routing to avoid traffic problems, accidents, and road construction.
The law does attempt to protect driver privacy by only making the records available to inspectors for compliance reviews, at post-crash investigations, and during roadside inspections. FMCSA believes this will help improve the proficiency of inspectors and law enforcement personnel who are required to review driver logbooks because everything is done electronically.One additional requirement insists that ELDs come equipped with mute buttons so that drivers can turn them off while in their sleeper berths. Unfortunately, this does nothing to mute mobile phones and other devices that often disrupt drivers’ sleep.
Safety on the roads is a critical concern to FMCSA. This proposal is one way they believe they can work to enforce accurate record keeping and compliance with existing laws.
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