A friendly heads up to all of our truckers out there... 

On April 1st, law enforcement officials will begin issuing out-of-service orders to commercial motor vehicle drivers who are not in compliance with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's (FMCSA) Electronic Logging Device (ELD) mandate.

Commercial drivers were required, effective December 18, 2017, to begin using ELDs or continue using compliant automatic onboard recording devices (AOBRDs) to prepare hours-of-service (HOS) records of duty status. Since that time, those found in violation of the ELD mandate have been cited by enforcement officers, but the violations have not affected a carrier’s Safety Measurement System (SMS) score, and drivers have been allowed to continue operating.

However, effective April 1st, commercial drivers cited for ELD violations will be placed out of service for 10 hours. A driver will be permitted to proceed to his/her next scheduled destination after 10 hours, assuming they have at least a paper log, but the driver must be compliant with the ELD rule before being dispatched on any subsequent trips. It should also be noted that as of April 1st, violations of the ELD mandate will count against carriers' Compliance, Safety, Accountability scores.

ELD Notes 

In preparation of the hard enforcement of the ELD mandate, we recommend that you take note of the following:

·     Motor carriers installing a new device after the December 18, 2017 implementation date must only install an ELD, and the device must be on the FMCSA'sregistered ELD list. Those who installed and used AOBRDs prior to that date may continue to run those devices until December 16, 2019, at which time only ELDs may be used.

·     A motor carrier that is exempt from using an ELD should consider providing proof to drivers who: (1) Operate vehicles equipped with a model year 1999 engine and older; and/or (2) Operate as 100-air mile radius driver as defined in 49 CFR 395.1(e).

·     Drivers are required to have the following on board their vehicles: (1) A paper or electronic user's manual describing how to operate the ELD; (2) A step-by-step instruction sheet showing how to transfer the driver's HOS records to enforcement officers; (3) An ELD malfunction instruction sheet; and (4) A supply of blank driver's records of duty status graph-grids sufficient to record information for a minimum of 8 days.

·     Transporters of agricultural commodities, including livestock, have until June 18, 2018 to adopt an ELD. In the interim, they may continue to use paper logs.

·     The ELD final rule does not change any of the basic hours-of-service regulations or exceptions. 

Owner Operator Direct provides top notch commercial trucking insurance to owner operators, whether operating with authority or as leased drivers. For a no-obligation quote, give us a ring at 800-499-1044 (Monday-Friday 9-5 pm ET) or answer some questions online and we'll email you one.