The Clock is Ticking on ELD Compliance
Despite how easy it is to install electronic logging devices and having the ability to use an app to log time, “it still takes fleet management and drivers generally a couple of months to get comfortable with the technology,” advises Tom Reader of ELD supplier J.J. Keller. Photos: J.J. Keller
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Despite how easy it is to install electronic logging devices and having the ability to use an app to log time, “it still takes fleet management and drivers generally a couple of months to get comfortable with the technology,” advises Tom Reader of ELD supplier J.J. Keller. Photos: J.J. Keller
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To loosely paraphrase what John Wayne barked at the dawn of a long day in “The Cowboys,” if you haven’t started gearing up to comply with the new ELD rule, you could end up burning more than daylight.
When it comes to complying with the electronic logging mandate, fleets and drivers alike are now well into the eleventh hour before the new rule kicks in. That will be just about four months from now, on Dec. 18.
Come that day, all carriers subject to the ELD rule will have to convert from using paper logs or logging software to a registered ELD if they do not have an automatic on-board recording device in use. And those using AOBRDs prior to the mandate will only be able to keep using them until Dec. 16, 2019.
The other key part of the rule applies to ELD suppliers, which must ensure their devices conform to technical specs set by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, self-certify those devices, and register them with FMCSA.
FMCSA last year advised carriers and drivers that before buying an ELD, they “should confirm that the device is certified and registered with FMCSA…Devices not vendor-certified by manufacturers and registered with FMCSA may not be compliant with the FMCSRs.”
Something critical to grasp is that the rule will not be stopped or even delayed at this point. The last, best hope to stave off the mandate came on June 12 when the Supreme Court denied the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association’s petition that it rule on whether …Read the rest of this story
