Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/933951
28 | Overdrive | February 2018 ELD MANDATE MEETS REALITY ing — I had to find a safe parking spot." And the inspector: "It still says you're in violation. It says right here you're in violation." When it comes to such situations, Santoianni says, "there has to be a common-sense gray area — what are you supposed to do?" The heated nature of the conversation probably didn't help matters, he believes. FMCSA representatives have more or less expressed the same kinds of senti- ment in their encouragement of state partners to take a gray-area leniency approach, yet the law is the law, and it all fails to account for the emotions generated by such encounters on both enforcement and truckers' sides. "Thank god I didn't have that guy," Santoianni says of the driver's inspector. Guidance, perhaps, on greater hours leeway for special circumstances that exist could be the answer. There is also a sense among some watchers and own- er-operators that more clear-cut defini- tions could present more problems than they solve in the end, leaving even less room for interpreting a difficult situa- tion. Lt. Thomas Fitzgerald of Among states that don't exactly fi t either of the enforcement categories detailed on the map is Arizona, where Capt. Brian Preston said in January the adoption of the federal electronic logging device rule for interstate truckers in state code was ongoing. Thus, the Arizona Depart- ment of Public Safety, which includes the state's highway patrol, won't be writing citations/tickets at least until that goes through — because, legally, it can't. The Owner-Operator Independent Driv- ers Association made news last August when it petitioned the Federal Motor Car- rier Safety Administration to act against states that it said hadn't updated state legal code suffi ciently to refl ect current safety regulations. As the association contends, a state's failure to incorporate federal safety regulations makes state personnel enforcing such regulations problematic, given lack of authority. "OOIDA contends that when FMCSA amends its regulations, the states must incorporate those amendments into state law before they can enforce them," the association said in a press release. The petition was put forward partly within the context of the ELD mandate fi - nal rule, singling out 26 states that OOIDA said hadn't adopted it. Part of the petition hinged on an argument that automatic regulatory adoption schemes present in most – if not all – states were invalid, which many states and FMCSA disputed. Some states, however, as is the case in Arizona, go through more cumbersome administrative or – as in California – legis- lative processes for adopting rules. FMCSA has yet to issue a formal response to the petition, and OOIDA remains concerned about enforcement legality and uniformity around hours and ELDs. As part of an effort to "ensure enforcement of the mandate is consis- tent on a state-by-state basis," OOIDA has established an email address – ELD@ OOIDA.com – to which operator members can send any tickets they do receive. OOIDA's Norita Taylor emphasizes that the association would like to see docu- mented cases of violations and urges operators using the address to attach copies of citations. SOME STATES AREN'T ENFORCING THE MANDATE YET SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY CAN'T Updating shorter lists that ran last month, here are states that have confi rmed their ELD-specifi c enforce- ment intentions ahead of April 1, when ELD-related violations begin contribut- ing points to carriers' CSA scores and out-of-service orders associated with ELD-specifi c violations go into effect. ENFORCEMENT BY STATE, UPDATED States delaying ELD ticket writing until April 1 States leaving ticket writing to the discretion of the individual offi cer Oregon DOT is not issuing citations at scale houses and is encouraging state police and local departments to follow along.