Five Trucking Companies Endorse Bill Requiring EOBRs
Five major trucking companies said Wednesday they have endorsed legislation by two U.S. senators that would require electronic onboard recorders in all trucks to verify drivers’ duty status.
The Commercial Driver Compliance Improvement Act would require trucks used in interstate commerce to install EOBRs within three years after the measure’s passage, according to a statement by the Alliance for Driver Safety & Security released via the Arkansas Trucking Association.
The bill is supported by trucking companies J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Knight Transportation, Maverick USA, Schneider National and U.S. Xpress Enterprises.
Bill Vickery, a spokesman for the alliance, said the group will urge other senators to co-sponsor the legislation in the hope that Congress will pass it next year, the statement said.
Passing the bill “will improve safety on our nation’s highways by applying technology to document driver compliance,” said Craig Harper, J.B. Hunt’s chief operating officer.
The bill “is a sensible initiative to improve working conditions for commercial drivers and to promote highway safety,” said Kevin Knight, chairman and CEO of Knight Transportation.” Under a uniform standard, the public will be able to rely on the hours in service of all drivers, rather than just some drivers.”
“Mandating the use of electronic on-board recorders commits the entire supply chain to meeting the challenges that faces this generation in surface transportation,” said Steve Williams, Maverick’s chairman and CEO.
Williams, a former chairman of American Trucking Associations, said that installing EOBRs will help assure the public that people who drive commercial vehicles are “well trained, drug- and alcohol-free and sufficiently rested.”
Donald Osterberg, Schneider’s senior vice president of safety, said that while the current federal hours-of-service rules are “science based, reasonable, and effective,” there is a lack of compliance with current rule and that “fatigue is underreported and thus underestimated as a causal factor in truck-involved crashes. Electronic logs take the non-compliance issues off the table.”
EOBRs “will enhance accountability, compliance, and safety,” said Patrick Quinn, co-chairman and president of U.S. Xpress, and also a former ATA chairman.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said recently that was considering a more expansive mandate for EOBRs than it indicated earlier this year.
The broader mandate would go beyond requiring the units for hazardous materials carriers and new trucking companies, which FMCSA already indicated it would propose. (Click here for previous story.)
