Semi trucks rented for 8 days or less will be exempt from the electronic logging device mandate for the next 5 years, announced the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
The announcement was made on Wednesday, October 11th by the FMCSA.
According to the FMCSA Press Release, truck drivers using a rental truck for 8 days or less will still be required to keep paper logs for all the days the rental truck is in use, but will not be required to log their hours with electronic logging devices (ELDs) until October of 2022.
The drivers of these trucks will be required to keep a copy of the rental agreement, as well as a copy of the exemption notice, with them in the temporary rental truck at all times to show law enforcement officers if necessary. If the rental truck has been driven for more than 8 days in a row, it will no longer qualify for the ELD mandate exemption.
Drivers of these temporary rental trucks will still be required to follow the hours-of-service rules.
The FMCSA says that allowing rented trucks to use paper logs, instead of ELDs, will not create a safety risk and “will achieve a level of safety that is equivalent to, or greater than, the level that would be achieved” by requiring electronic logs.
The request for an ELD mandate exemption for rental trucks was submitted by the Truck Renting and Leasing Association in March of this year. The exemption request was originally written for rentals of 30 days or less, but the FMCSA decided that a 30 day exemption period was “unnecessarily long.”
The FMCSA believes that the 8 day exemption period “would give most carriers sufficient time to repair or replace their usual vehicles, while minimizing any temptation to extend non-ELD operations.”