ELD rule public comments mixed, with renewed focus on hours rule

In one of the comments on the public docket under the proposed mandate for electronic-logging-device use by interstate motor carriers and drivers, driver and commenter Mark Olsen of Clinton, Utah, echoed the overall mixed positive and negative nature of the comments all told. However, he rejoined arguments in favor of the need for ELDs with a message heard increasingly among Overdrive readers and other industry observers and participants — that the hours of service rules in general are the bigger problem as regards true safety. 

While Olsen said he has used both electronic logs and paper logs, and that electronic logs probably are the better option, if “you want safety on highways,” he added, “remove the 14-hour [window of on-duty time] and you will see a better change in driver compliance.

“As it is now with hours of service — they are not safe at all. This is from real world experience. Drivers now are speeding through work zones and truck stops and speeding where possible due to lack of flexibility. They’re running tired because we can’t stop at all to rest.” 

More flexible sleeper splits and other hours options have been the subject of long-ongoing discussion by owner-operators and drivers since the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration brought the 14-hour window into play more than a decade ago. With recent news that there has been more congressional attention to FMCSA’s work crafting the changes introduced to the hours of service last year, Overdrive‘s poll question of the week probed the notion that ELDs might be more appealing were the hours rules themselves not so restrictive.

Reflecting the view of the majority of respondents, however, regular Overdrive commenter Jason Haggard, responding to the question in the new Overdrive’s Trucking Pro LinkedIn group, noted that privacy issues still trump concern over the hours rules when it comes to his opposition to ELDs. A revamp of the hours of service would do nothing, he noted, to address his concern that “24/7 monitoring by force is a violation of certain rights,” he says. “When the EOBR, now ELD, was first brought into discussion it was supposed to be for habitual violators only. Now it has grown into a proposed mandatory device for everyone. Furthermore the FMCSA has continued to state it will make the roads safer and has launched a campaign stating this to the general public. …

“What I see is the government pressing new regulations into service all of the time and then finding out their experiment was wrong from the beginning.”  (See related: GAO’s report on CSA.)

On the public docket for the rule, commenters thus far have come down on both sides of the issue, with some saying the mandate is a needed safety mechanism and others dismissing the rule as unnecessarily burdensome and as a privacy intrusion.