Over the past couple of years, the FMCSA has hit the trucking industry hard with tougher rules and regulations. Now they’re doing it again with the recent publication of a new EOBR proposal.
This EOBR is being proposed in an effort to reduce paperwork for drivers and carriers, but more importantly, to “increase the safety of operating your CMV.”
The four new rules involved are as follows:
- Minimum performance and design standards for hours-of-service (HOS) electronic logging devices (ELDs)
- Requirements for the mandatory use of these devices by drivers currently required to prepare HOS records of duty status (RODS).
- Requirements concerning HOS supporting documents.
- Measures to address concerns about harassment resulting from the mandatory use of ELDs.
So basically, the mandatory electronic logs will be tracking trucker’s hours, in the name of safety and less paperwork. But are these new electronic devices really going to make truckers lives easier and the industry safer, as they claim?
There are some concerns by drivers, and apparently by members of congress, about possible abuse by dispatchers related to using these ELD’s. They want to make sure that things like pushing a driver to go on longer, regardless of fatigue or road conditions, does not occur. “What? That guy sitting behind the desk doesn’t know more than the guy who’s actually driving?”
Congress has stated it will not allow these new rules to move forward, if the correct measures to prevent driver harassment are not in place. If all proposed measures are implemented to protect drivers from harassment, the new EOBR will go into effect some time in 2016.