Letter: EOBRs

This Letter to the Editor appears in the Nov. 29 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

EOBRs

I was reading your Nov. 1 issue and came across the article about the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, electric onboard recorders and hours of service (“OOIDA Asks Federal Court to Overturn Electronic HOS Recorder Requirement,” p. 31). I read the article and felt I should put in my 2 cents’ worth on this issue.

The HOS-EOBR requirement should not be overturned. If anything, EOBRs should be required in all over-the-road commercial vehicles. The company I work for converted to EOBRs last year, and they have proved to be a valuable resource for us.

Consider the OOIDA argument that EOBRs violate a driver’s Fourth Amendment right to privacy. This argument has no merit. Cell phones track a driver’s location, and I don’t hear anyone complaining about their cell phones. Driver’s fuel cards register a date, time and location when they are used. I don’t hear anyone complaining about them. Weigh stations across the country monitor vehicle locations on a daily basis. I don’t hear anyone complaining about them. Furthermore, our engines are computerized. We can hook up to them and monitor activity. The Fourth Amendment argument is frivolous at best.

As for the argument that EOBRs are subject to manipulation, it doesn’t hold water, either. There is a reason that the driver’s daily logbook has been called the “liars book” for years in the industry.

With EOBRs, we have an opportunity to make major improvements to the hours-of-service rules. The fact that the vehicles are tracked by Global Positioning System technology works in our favor. Let’s use it and take the liar out of the logbook.

Give the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration a chance to look at this technology after it is implemented. They have some pretty smart people working for them. I use their expertise on a regular basis. They are not the enemy, as some people would portray them. They actually are a valuable resource for the trucking industry.

If I had any influence with the FMCSA I would advise them to leave the hours-of-service rules as they are now. They should implement the mandate for EOBRs in all over-the-road commercial vehicles.

Once compliance is actually enforceable, they should modify the hours of service. We would find then that many of the current rules have become outdated. Everyone knows that truck drivers spend hours on end waiting at shipper and receiver facilities. This would become a moot issue. Let the driver take a nap while he waits. We could establish a number of hours each day that a driver could work — and ignore a lot of the details in between. This would in effect take the liar out of the logbook.

Let’s stop whining about the changes coming to the industry and embrace them. I believe these changes will be a major improvement for the industry when all is said and done.

Larry Krog

Safety Director

Golden Ring Trucking

Fergus Falls, Minn.