Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/284466
LEADING NEWS, TRUCKING MARKET CONDITIONS AND INDUSTRY ANALYSIS S purred partly by a petition from the American Trucking Associations, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration indi - cated plans for a rule this year that would require the use of speed limit- ers in heavy trucks. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation's March report on significant rulemakings, the rule is set to be sent May 21 to U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx for approval and then be for - warded June 26 to the White House Office of Management and Budget. The DOT report said the proposed rule could be published Oct. 1. The rulemaking process is a joint effort with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and would apply to trucks with a GVWR of more than 26,000 pounds. In addition to ATA petitioning FMCSA, Roadsafe America petitioned NHTSA, and DOT requested public comment on both petitions. DOT's report said it received thousands of comments supporting the petitions' requests, propelling the agencies to act on them. FMCSA Associate Administrator for Policy Larry Minor said at the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee in February that the speed limiter rule could be "retroactive" and that the agency would explore whether the requirement would apply to new trucks only or all trucks, meaning ret - rofitting older equipment. In a 2012 legal case, a judge ruled speed limiters were unsafe and a vio- lation of rights. – CCJ staff FMCSA proposes electronic logging device mandate T he Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration last month announced a long-awaited Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to mandate electronic log- ging devices. It's likely the rule, which estimates the annualized cost of compliance to be between $165 and $832 per truck, will go into effect in late 2016. The proposal says it will go into effect two years after the final rule is issued, which could happen later this year. The American Trucking Associations welcomed the proposal, while the Owner- Operator Independent Drivers Association said it will study it more closely during the comment period. The SNPRM follows an FMCSA rule from 2010 that mandated the use of elec- tronic onboard recorders, but that rule was vacated in August 2011 by a federal court over concerns the devices could be used to harass drivers. The latest rule consists of four parts: The ELD requirement itself, protections against driver harassment, hardware specifications and hours-of-service-related supporting documents drivers must carry. ELD mandate. The mandate will apply to all drivers currently required to keep paper records of duty status. Drivers required to keep records in eight or more days out of every 30 days must use an ELD, replacing the 2011 rule's requirement that drivers who keep records two or more days out of every seven use a logging device. Carriers and drivers would not be required to install or use a logging device until two years after the effective date of the final rule. Carriers that used what the agency calls "automatic onboard recording devices" prior to the ELD mandate have two more years on top of that to comply. Driver harassment. The agency says its two "primary focuses" regarding driver harassment involving the devices were to prevent pressures on drivers to exceed hours-of-service limits and "inappropri- ate communications that affect drivers' rest periods." Proposed safeguards include expanded drivers' access to records, explicit wording about carriers harassing drivers, imple- menting a complaint procedure, stiffening penalties for those who do harass drivers, "edit rights" for drivers, limitations on loca- tion tracking, mute functionality for the devices and preserving driver confidential- ity in enforcement proceedings. Hardware specifications. The devices required by the new rule are more tech- nologically advanced than those required by the April Scan the QR code with your smartphone or visit ccjdigital.com/news/subscribe-to-news- letters to sign up for the CCJ Daily Report, a daily e-mail newsletter filled with news, analy- sis, blogs and market condition articles. COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | APRIL 2014 9 Speed limiter rule could come this year The ELD rule, likely to go into effect in late 2016, estimates the annualized cost of compliance to be between $165 and $832 per truck. Continued on page 60