The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has made a massive stride in their historic crackdown on ELD fraud by revoking 120 ELDs on Thursday.
The move follows Overdrive reporting that FMCSA was confronted with direct evidence of ELD fraud in Dekalb, Illinois, by fleet owner Zach Meiborg, who had a driver pull up to a police station and get his hours reset on the spot.
U.S. DOT released a video on Thursday showing the exact same driver in the same truck getting his hour reset again, this time outside DOT headquarters.
"Commercial drivers can only drive 11 hours without having to take a break. They keep those hours of service through an electronic logging device, but these devices are being manipulated by fraudsters overseas," FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs said in the video.
FMCSA has long known about hackable ELDs. Leading researchers say that around 75% of the 900 ELDs registered with FMCSA may allow cheating. Meiborg estimated about one million trucks on the road today run non-compliant logs.
[Related: How 1 million ELD fraudsters broke the trucking industry, and how to save it]
"One issue that you may not be able to understand on roadside or be able to verify is whether that issue has been manipulated on the backend," said Barrs, further confirming months of Overdrive reporting on law enforcement's struggles to catch bad actors.
Because the logs are reset, often by overseas call centers, to look perfect, most roadside inspectors can't easily catch the fraudulent logs in operation.
"Currently, no, when there's an outside force manipulating logs," it's not something that's easily detected, said a roadside inspector responded to Barrs in the video.
The video shows Meiborg Inc.'s driver, Francis "Bink" Buchanan calling into one of those call centers and getting his hours reset on the spot, with Barrs in the passenger seat. After the call center acknowledges his request, he's asked to reset the device, and it's good to go.
"Magically I can drive for another 11-12-14 hours," he said.
Inspectors in the video flagged fatigue concerns for drivers, but for Meiborg and many in trucking, it's not just a safety issue, but one of economic fairness.
"My cost to run the truck down the road is about $3 to send these trucks down the road," Meiborg told Barrs in the video, which was filmed November 2. "Where these guys can operate more miles, they're bringing their costs down to about $2 per mile."
"The fraud and abuse that happen with ELDs within this country is ridiculous. Today we're removing over 100 devices with more to come," said Barrs. "This stops today"
For Meiborg, the move represents an acknowledgement of the struggle compliant carriers have gone through and the start of a new era in trucking.
“I salute you drivers who have compliantly carried the burden through the last six years through all the fraud," Meiborg told Overdrive. "Thank you DOT and FMCSA. This is a small step forward in a much larger process. We have 600 more illegal ELDs to go, and we’re not going to stop until the fraud has been routed out.”
A press release from DOT on Thursday gave an example of how the fraud plays out.
- ELD Company A allowed carriers to completely bypass hours of service limits by calling a support line to manually wipe out driving time and fabricate rest periods while actively driving.
- ELD Company B was caught actively uploading fake logs during an active roadside inspection to cover up an overworked driver operating hours beyond the legal limit.
- ELD Company C -- logs showed drivers traveling at mathematically impossible speeds of up to 130 miles per hour to compress driving time.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are cracking down on rampant fraud on America’s roads. This latest crackdown -- which required hundreds of man hours and extensive forensic investigations -- will prevent criminals from cooking the books, sabotaging trucker wages, and endangering you and your family when you drive,” said DOT Secretary Sean P. Duffy. “From pulling thousands of illegal licenses to shutting down sham schools to launching our Freedom Haulers campaign, our message is simple: America’s roads are for American truckers. This administration will stop at nothing to protect the driving public.”
FMCSA’s action removes 121 agency-revoked devices and 12 voluntary self-revocations that failed to meet the Trump Administration’s standards of readiness.
“Motor carriers must have confidence that every device on FMCSA’s public registry is compliant, secure, and actively supported,” said Barrs. "We are removing noncompliant and fraudulent devices to close loopholes that can be exploited to evade oversight, avoid revocation, bypass vetting requirements, or undermine accurate hours-of-service records. This action protects law-abiding carriers and drivers and makes clear that FMCSA will not tolerate devices that compromise the integrity of the ELD system.”
