The first day of so-called “hard enforcement” of the ELD mandate came and went with little fanfare, based on a sampling of drivers’ online comments. In an interesting quirk of the calendar, the day coincided with April Fool’s Day and Easter Sunday, the day of the week itself one where truck-enforcement activity is characteristically light.
As noted by Overdrive in late March, the U.S. DOT and its enforcement partner the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance will begin putting truckers out of service for 10 hours if they’re required by regulations to have an ELD and aren’t running one. After the 10-hour period is up, drivers can continue to deliver their load on paper logs, though they must be compliant by the time they’re dispatched on their next load or be subject to another 10-hour out-of-service order.
April 1 also marked the date by which ELD violations would begin counting against carriers’ scores in the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program.
Most owner-operators responding Monday to an evening request for comments posted to Overdrive‘s Facebook page noted nothing out of the ordinary in general terms from enforcement.
“Haven’t noticed a thing” different, wrote Jeff Clark.
Glen Murphy concurred: “Haven’t seen anything out of the normal.”
To that point, noted Rick Underwood, “All of the California scales have been open for business today” on his routes through the state, known for its busy inspectors.
