Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/655308
6 // OWNER OPERATOR // APRIL 2016 News & Notes ELD mandate: Is drivers' time saved by e-logs worth near $2 billion annually? By Todd Dills The most-recent edition of Land Line, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers As- sociation's magazine, reminded me of a key element of the association's challenge to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administra- tion's previous electronic logs rule, which would have required use for carriers with a certain percentage of hours of service non- compliance. The rule was vacated by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals on grounds that, as OOIDA argued, the FMCSA had failed to consider the harassment of drivers as a result of the rule. As we've reported over the years since, FMC- SA went to lengths to account for/combat the potential for harassment, including develop- ing the parallel anti-coercion rule, unveiled in final form just weeks prior to the December 2015 release of the latest ELD rule. As Land Line managing editor Jami Jones wrote in the February edition of the magazine, however, the court's ruling in 2012 vacating the prior limited-mandate e-log rule was a narrow one. Here's what Jones wrote relative to the issue of harassment: The opinion from the court, prepared by Circuit Judge Diane Wood, stated that the court "need address only the first issue" of driver harassment. But that "first issue" wasn't the only argu- ment OOIDA made against the rule. The suit also argued that the government requiring e-logs violated the 4th Amendment's protec- tion in the Constitution against unreasonable search and seizure and that, also, FMCSA's "cost-benefit analysis failed to demonstrate the benefits," as Jones wrote.