ELD Certification: What Does it Really Mean?
One ELD provider, Eroad, is using a third-party verification program to help give customers peace of mind. Photo: Eroad
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One ELD provider, Eroad, is using a third-party verification program to help give customers peace of mind. Photo: Eroad
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If you see an announcement that an electronic logging device has been “FMCSA certified” to meet the new mandatory ELD regulations that go into effect Dec. 17, you might assume that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has performed some sort of testing to verify that that the ELD does in fact comply with those regulations.
That assumption would be wrong.
Earlier this year, FMCSA posted a notice on its Facebook page that “some ELD manufacturers are improperly marketing their devices as ‘FMCSA-certified.’ This is incorrect. FMCSA maintains an online registry of devices vendor-certified by the manufacturer.”
In guidance last September, FMCSA advised, “Prior to purchasing an ELD, carriers and drivers should confirm that the device is certified and registered with FMCSA and listed at this website: https://3pdp.fmcsa.dot.gov/ELD/ELDList.aspx. Devices not vendor-certified by manufacturers and registered with FMCSA may not be compliant with the FMCSRs.”
But in reality, there’s no guarantee that the ones on the list are actually compliant, either.
Registration, not verification
“In order to certify their product, ELD manufacturers simply conduct their own tests,” explains Alexis Cappelle, ELD program manager for Continental Corp. “However, the tests may or may not follow FMCSA’s test specifications. As a result, fleets may not know if an ELD registered on FMCSA’s website is actually compliant. A system registered today may be found non-compliant tomorrow and removed from the list.”
John Seidl, a longtime commercial enforcement officer who’s now a transportation consultant with Integrated Risk Solutions, puts it a bit more bluntly: To get on the list, “In layman’s terms, you just say, ‘I’m an ELD.’”
To get on the list, “In layman’s terms, you just say, ‘I’m an ELD.’”
Tom Cuthbertson, TITLE with Omnitracs, explains that “it’s a registration process; it’s …Read the rest of this story
