Truckers asking Trump to get rid of ELD Regulations
Last year the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration or FMCSA announced the electronic logging device (ELD) manage to improve safety in the industry. This is a device that is able to record the driving time automatically on a vehicles engine. This not only provides a greater level of safety for drivers and other drivers on the road, but it also simplifies the process of logging time and is more accurate than the traditional paper log method.
This new mandate, according to the FMCSA, is to provide more compliance with hours of service regulations. The mandate helps regulate the hours a driver is on the road to prevent tiredness that could cause potential unsafe situations for other drivers. Not only does the ELD record their driving hours, it is also able to monitor other things such as location, miles, and movement.
On October 25th the Small Business in Transportation Coalition created a petition asking the White House to get rid of ELD regulations. This petition is in response to new data that shows an increase in fatal trucker crashes. So far this year there has been 885 deaths, an increase of .8%.
The petition:
On October 22, 2019, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) released new data that show that in 2018, the first full year the new ELD rule was in effect for the trucking industry to enforce commercial motor vehicle operators’ compliance with hours of service regulations, more than 2 occupants of large trucks died. Every. Single. Day. This is the highest number of such deaths since 1988, making this stat a 30-year high. We believe ELDs have caused drivers anxiety to such levels that many now recklessly speed to beat the clock. We call on the Whitehouse to direct the USDOT to act on NHTSA findings and immediately suspend ELDs until unintended consequences can be studied to decide if the rule is ripe for repeal.
Currently, the petition only has 9,815 signatures, and needs another 90.185 to get a response from the White House before November 24th.