Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/655308
NEWS & NOTES 8 // OWNER OPERATOR // APRIL 2016 OOIDA's petition for review of the De- cember-released rule (also to the 7th Circuit) hasn't come with any defi nitive arguments as yet. Spokesperson Norita Taylor, queried ear- lier today, noted details remain forthcoming as the association works through the rule. But if Jones' "FMCSA is in for a fi ght" story in Land Line is any indication, both the 4th Amendment and the cost-benefi t analysis may well be expected to fi gure in those arguments. A look at the numbers attached to FMCSA's Regulatory Impact Analysis (required of any rule of economic signifi cance) accompanying the ELD rule itself shows some very large fi g- ures on both the annualized costs and benefi ts sides. The single largest benefi t — well above the annual $572.2 million worth in crash re- ductions the agency estimates for the rule's safety-related benefi ts — is in driver time saved using ELDs. The agency estimated a whopping $1.88 billion worth of time saved by drivers who would no longer have to fi ll out and submit paper logbooks to carriers. Here's how the entire $2.44 billion of cleri- cal/paperwork-related savings break down on the whole: In comments on the rule, the California Construction Trucking Association (since re- named the Western States Trucking Associa- tion) questioned such benefi ts, particularly as related to driver's time, as not refl ecting the re- ality today of mileage and/or percentage pay, where time saved is only indirectly related to dollars. CCTA/WSTA "believed that while some calculated time savings may be present — especially on the fl eet management side of the equation — assigning a dollar value to the time drivers spend completing paperwork is an example of government manipulating data to justify a regulation," FMCSA noted in text accompanying the rule. OOIDA has made this argument as well. A briefi ng document that accompanied a Sep- tember 2013 meeting between White House Offi ce of Management and Budget staff and OOIDA representatives noted that "truckers are generally paid by-the-mile, so there is no appreciable savings from not requiring the trucker to fi ll out the paper log." Furthermore, the briefi ng document con- tinued, "With 50 percent of the industry be- ing one-truck op- erations, the vast majority of carriers do not have clerical staff." Estimates of back- offi ce benefi t, by the latter argument, wouldn't apply in the same way to independents' op- erations as those of larger carriers. The rule appears to do little if anything to