ORLANDO — In a sometimes-lively educational session at the American Trucking Associations 2017 Management Conference & Exhibition Saturday, a panel of regulatory, enforcement and fleet personnel fielded questions on enforcement and other aspects of the electronic logging device mandate that goes into effect Dec. 18.
“In today’s environment, you cannot pick up a periodical or go through 10 emails without someone offering a webinar about the ELD mandate,” said Jim Ward, president and CEO of D.M. Bowman Inc., a 400-truck fleet that has been on electronic logs since 2013. Pointing out that the overwhelming majority of the country’s trucking operations are small fleets, “it is a huge impact on a number of small businesses.”
Joe DeLorenzo, director of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Office of Compliance and Enforcement, went over some of the common questions, such as exemptions. But much of the discussion centered around what will happen at roadside come December.
Both DeLorenzo and Colin Mooney, executive director of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, stressed several times that the ELD rules do not change the underlying hours of service rules.
“A lot of folks are tying ELDs to the hours of service rules themselves,” Mooney observed. Many of the drivers and others objecting to the ELD mandate claim it will end the “flexibility” they currently have with paper logs. But in the eyes of the law, that “flexibility” is simply cheating.
“Enforcement’s ready to enforce the rules,” Mooney said. “All we’re doing is moving from a paper to electronic format. However, for some it will be their first introduction to hours of compliance,” he noted, drawing a chuckle from the audience.
Enforcement issues
Mooney and DeLorenzo also wanted to clear up some confusion about the CVSA and FMCSA’s recent announcement that drivers will not be put out of service for violating the ELD rule until April 2018.
“A lot of people thought it meant ‘soft enforcement’” Mooney said. “We are not using that term at all. That is very subjective depending on who you’re talking to.” Come Dec. 18, he said, enforcement officials will be noting violations on inspection reports, which will go into the SMS database and affect carrier CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability) scores.
DeLorenzo explained that the points system for CSA is not changing. If a driver does not have an ELD or grandfathered AOBRD, points will be charged as if he did not have a paper logbook. If you’ve exceeded the allowable hours, it’s the same violation as before. If the ELD data file pulls up on an enforcement official’s system with a notification that the truck was moving when the driver had logged sleeper berth time, that’s falsifying logs. “Think about an ELD as an electronic form of keeping hours of service,” DeLorenzo said. “Everything is pretty much the same. Each violation cited on an inspection report has a certain weight associated with it; if it’s out of service, it gets a little more weight.”
In addition to the inspection report, enforcement officials may also opt to issue a verbal or written warning, or write a citation/ticket.
Although the press release said jurisdictions would have discretion on the level of enforcement, Mooney told the audience, “From what I’m hearing it’s going to be pretty consistent across the board. We’re training the trainers at all the jurisdictions at the same time. I’ve been given no indication it will be done any other way.”
Mooney also addressed a recent petition from the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association asking for a delay in the implementation of the rule, claiming that many states did not have the proper legislation in place to be able to legally enforce the federal rule. “We have canvassed all of our states and there’s only a couple that are still in the process of going though the legislative process, and both are on track to have that in place by Dec. 18.”
Data transfer
Mooney said the agency is embarking on a train-the-trailer program next week to educate state enforcement about the data transfer process — an area that has caused some confusion, especially since the agency did not have a process in place for vendors to test their data files until fairly recently.
On its website, the FMCSA has a data vile validator tool. Although it was designed for ELD vendors to check their data files, DeLorenzo noted that some fleets have been using it to test their ELD files as well… Read more at www.truckinginfo.com
*Source: http://www.truckinginfo.com/channel/fleet-management/news/story/2017/10/eld-mandate-enforcement-highlights-ata-educational-session.aspx