Dozens of Congressmen Go to Bat for OOIDA ELD Exemption Request
Twenty-five Congressmen have wriiten to FMCSA in support of OOIDA’s request for a five-year ELD exemption for certain motor carriers.
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The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has garnered the support of over two dozen Congressmen in the form of a letter from them to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that encourages the agency to grant OOIDA’s pending application for a 5-year exemption from the electronic logging device mandate for small trucking businesses with exemplary safety records.
Specifically, OOIDA has requested at least a 5-year exemption for motor carriers classified as small businesses, according to the Small Business Administration, and that have a proven safety history with no attributable at-fault crashes, and that do not have a Carrier Safety Rating of “Unsatisfactory.”
Click here for our story on oppositon to the OOIDA exemption request
The Feb 1 letter to FMCSA by Reps. Brian Babin (R-TX) and Steve King (R-IA) and co-signed by another 23 Representatives, calls OOIDA’s request “responsibly constructed” as it focuses “only on carriers defined by the Small Business Administration as a small-trucking business” and that have “a record of no at-fault crashes would be exempted.
“By sustaining impeccable safety records, the motor carriers that would qualify have already demonstrated the use of an ELD will do nothing to improve their operations,” continue Babin and King. “Futhermore, OOIDA’s request would prevent small trucking businesses, who operate on the slimmest of margins, from maintaining costly fleet management devices that provide them no economic or productivity benefits.”
The Congressmen also make something of an all-for-one and one-for-all argument, pointing out that “FMCSA has already granted several requests for exemption from the ELD mandate. Clearly, the agency is capable and willing to provide relief for industries who have demonstrated that exemptions will not decrease safety. In this regard, OOIDA’s application for exemption is …Read the rest of this story
