ELDs Significantly Reduce Crashes, FMCSA Study Says

A Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration study released May 12 concludes that longhaul trucks with electronic logging devices had significantly lower crash rates than those without them.

The study found that the trucks with ELDs had an 11.7% lower crash rate and a 5.1% lower preventable crash rate.

Although it included data from 11 carriers representing small, medium, and large fleets — a total of 82,943 crashes, 970 HOS violations, 224,034 truck-years and 15.6 billion miles driven — the study was skewed toward larger, for-hire carriers and may not represent the overall U.S. trucking population, the agency said.

The purpose of the study was to assess the benefits of installed electronic hours of service recorders on safety and hours violations related to Classes 7-8 trucks as they operated during normal revenue-producing deliveries.

The data were obtained through a third-party vendor that compiled previously-generated compliance data regarding participating motor carriers.