Editorial: ELDs Are Coming

It took a while to happen, but it appears at first glance that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration did a pretty good job with the electronic logging device proposal that is due for official publication on March 17.

Truck operators involved in interstate commerce have long worked under the same hours-of-service rules for drivers, but this proposal would make it far more difficult for the few bad actors who skirt those rules to keep doing so. Widespread, uniform compliance with critical safety rules is highly desirable, not only for the overwhelming number of truckers but also for the public.

We’re largely a newspaper, so we hate to criticize paper, and we’re the voice of trucking, so we’re not always keen on regulation, but it really is time to retire paper driver logs, go electronic and use a “21st-century technology” — as American Trucking Associations Chairman Philip Byrd Sr. said.

Moving ELDs into broad circulation, ATA President Bill Graves said, is a good way “to improve safety and compliance in the trucking industry and to level the playing field with thousands of fleets that have already voluntarily moved to this technology.”

There have been discussions, debates, comments, negotiations and litigation about ELDs going back to 2007 for this rule, and into the previous century when looking at the foundations of this issue. But now, at last, there’s something in place that largely makes sense.

Once a final rule is released — the comment period must still be observed — the nation’s 4.36 million commercial vehicles will have two years to get outfitted with ELDs that record driver hours.

There is a new standard for what an ELD must do. It replaces the description set forth in a 1988 regulation — or technology in place when Ronald Reagan was finishing his presidency. Still, those older logging devices can remain on trucks for two years past the compliance date, allowing for a measured phase-in.

Even the new standard is not a radical overhaul of technology. FMCSA estimates that logging devices of a 2010 vintage installed by fleets should meet the mark with just some software upgrading.

“Fleets will be familiar with this,” one analyst said.

We also salute FMCSA for crafting a flexible proposal. The agency wrote the proposal broadly, enumerating essential functions for ELDs but not mandating specific manufacturers or types of technology.

Paper printouts are an example of FMCSA’s flexible approach. If you as a fleet manager like them, you can keep using them, but not every fleet has to do so.