Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/698304
18 | Overdrive | July 2016 Logbook FMCSA defends ELD mandate The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on June 15 filed its response to the lawsuit against its 2015-issued electronic logging device mandate, defending the rule's consti- tutionality and saying it stands up to a cost-benefit analysis. FMCSA says the rule will improve hours of service compliance, prevent 1,844 crashes a year and save 26 lives annually. The agency also contends the rule does not violate truckers' constitutional privacy rights, as the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association charges in its lawsuit against the proposed mandate. OOIDA Executive Vice President Todd Spencer said he expects the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to decide the case by yearend. Relative to privacy, FMCSA says that trucking has a "long tradition of close government supervision," citing the 1987 court decision New York v. Burger. Drivers should have a lower privacy expectation while on the job because trucking is such a highly regulated industry, FMCSA argues. Given that ELDs are meant to track only hours of service compliance, they infringe on truckers' rights no more than paper logs, the agency argues. OOIDA's alleged infringement on drivers' Fourth Amendment pro- tections against illegal search and seizure, which the association attri- butes to the tracking requirements spelled out in the ELD rule, is one of its principal arguments against the mandate. The majority of truck operators who currently have to keep records of duty status will be required to use an ELD by Dec. 18, 2017. OOIDA successfully challenged FMCSA's prior attempt to require ELDs. The association's new law- suit will be heard by the same court that ruled to overturn the agency's 2010-published ELD mandate. Also last month, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a trucker's request to intervene in OOIDA's lawsuit, siding with the 7th Circuit Court's decision to bar William Trescott from the case. – James Jaillet FMCSA says the rule will improve hours of service compliance, prevent 1,844 crashes a year and save 26 lives annually. Scores likely to be hidden for two years, DOT chief says The reforms required by Congress to the federal Compliance, Safety, Accountability carrier ranking system will take about two years to com- plete, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told a Senate panel last month. That's the same timeline under which the industry can expect to see CSA scores – the percentile rankings in the CSA Safety Measure- ment System's seven BASICs – return to public view. The FAST Act required the Fed- eral Motor Carrier Safety Admin- istration to pull CSA SMS rankings from public view, though much of the underlying violation data remains available publicly. Congress also directed the agency to work with the National Academies of Science and other government accountability agencies to develop a plan to reform the system before the scores can be returned to public view. Since the program's 2011 in- ception, many inside and outside the trucking industry have pointed to flaws in its data well and the methods used to calculate carriers' scores. The resulting flawed scores were available for third parties such as shippers, brokers and insurers to view and make deter- minations about carriers and their crash risk. The program has been particu- larly unfair for small carriers and owner-operators, studies have shown. The required reforms are meant to bring CSA scores more in line with carriers' actual crash risk. – James Jaillet