The Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) has filed a petition to allow small trucking companies with clean safety records to avoid the required use of ELDs for the next 5 years.
The request was made by the OOIDA to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on Tuesday, November 21st.
According to the OOIDA Petition, the exemption would apply only to those trucking businesses that qualify as small – meaning businesses that gross less that $27.5 million a year.
Small businesses looking to be exempt must “document a proven history of safety performance with no attributable at-fault crashes,” and must never have received a carrier safety rating of unsatisfactory. If the businesses fits both of these criteria, OOIDA says they should be granted an exemption from the ELD mandate until 2022.
The OOIDA explains its request like this:
“The exemption [from the ELD mandate] would not have any adverse impacts on operational safety, as motor carriers and drivers would remain subject to the [hours of service] regulations… If the safety records of large fleets with ELDs are examined, it is clear that merely installing ELDs does not achieve safety benefits. The Agency assumes that compliance with the [hours of service] regulations will decrease crashes and therefore show a benefit that outweighs the costs associated with purchasing and installing ELDs. FMCSA attempted to validate these benefits through a convoluted mathematical analysis founded upon assumptions, while also utilizing an extremely small and outdated data set.”
“Small-business truckers that have already proven their ability to operate safely should not be subject to purchasing costly, unproven and uncertified devices,” added OOIDA Executive Vice President Todd Spencer.
The OOIDA also states that the use of ELDs is an increased security threat to truckers, as it leaves big rigs open to online hackers through the devices.
If approved by the FMCSA, the request exemption would last five years and would be “subject to renewal upon application.”
The FMCSA Public Affairs office has yet to answer the request and has declined inquiries as to the timing of their response.
