The ELD Mandate: Changes Are Imminent

On September 16th, 2022, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), issued an ‘advanced notice of proposed rulemaking’ soliciting input from the public and impacted stakeholders on ways to improve the electronic logging device (ELD) mandate. The ELD mandate requires commercial motor vehicles to record driving hours and service as well as comply with the Hours of Service (HOS) rules. Logging devices record data such as engine run-time, miles driven, engine operating time and more. The FMCSA sought feedback on five areas in particular: applicability to pre-2000 engines, addressing ELD malfunctions, the process for removing ELD products from the agency’s list of certified devices, technical specifications and ELD certification.

Although the commenting period closed on November 15th, the consideration of these rules within the ELD mandate in and of itself has not. The feedback garnered an overwhelmingly emphatic disdain for the mandate. A November 8th, 2022 article penned by Mark Schremmer in LandLine Now details some of the comments and here is one: “Mandating ELDs in the first place was supposed to improve safety…But it did the opposite. So why is the whole ELD mandate not just scrapped? It was never about safety.” The article also points to the fact that although the mandate went into effect in 2018, since 2017, fatality crashes have increased by 14.5%.

At WheelsDonlen, we believe the response to the FMCSA’s request will lead to one or a mix of the following: a shift in public policy, regulatory reform, regulatory amendments and shifts in enforcement activities. We would be grateful if you would share your concerns or feedback regarding the ELD mandate with us. We encourage you to contact us and we will put you in touch with our compliance expert – Iram Ibrahim.