FMCSA Seeks Additional Comment on EOBR Rule

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is seeking additional public comment on its proposed mandatory electronic onboard recorders rule to help the agency ensure that motor carriers do not use the technology to harass or violate the privacy of truck drivers.

FMCSA said it was asking for additional comment by May 23 in response to driver privacy issues raised in a federal lawsuit filed last year by the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association. The pending lawsuit was filed as a challenge to the agency’s first proposed EOBR rule, announced in April 2010.

Click here to submit a comment on the EOBR rule, which was published in the April 13 Federal Register. (Comments are due by May 23.)

While the first rule only mandated EOBR use for carriers in need of remedial monitoring, the second proposed EOBR rule, announced on Feb. 1, expanded the mandate to include nearly all interstate trucks as a way to ensure compliance with FMCSA’s hours-of-service proposed rule, announced in December.

FMCSA said its EOBR regulation must by law make it clear that the devices cannot be used to harass vehicle operators.

But the agency said the devices may be used for  “productivity-related purposes, which could include maintaining contact with drivers, monitoring driver progress, determining delivery and work schedules, and even requiring drivers to return to duty, so long as the drivers would not be put in violation of the hours-of-service or other regulations.”

In its petition filed with the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, OOIDA told the court it had concerns that motor carriers could “exploit the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of EOBRs to defeat the ultimate purpose for the HOS rules — giving drivers the opportunity for restorative sleep.”

OOIDA said that with the EOBRs drivers will have all of their movements in their trucks monitored and recorded 24 hours a day, seven days a week.