Deadline Approaching: Getting Up to Speed on ELD

Wednesday October 25, 2017

Some Fleet Managers have embraced it. Others have resisted over the years due to cost and the factors. But come December of this year, 2017, all CDL drivers required to keep a Record of Duty Status (RODS) must use an Electronic Logging Device (ELD) to document their compliance with HOS rules.

The Mandate requires that all ELD devices:

Connect to the truck’s engine to record if the truck is in motion
Allow the driver to log in and select On-duty, Off-duty, or On-Duty Not Driving; drive segments must be automatically selected based on vehicle movement
Graphically display a Record of Duty Status, so a driver can quickly see hours in a day
Provide data in a format that’s standardized and can be transmitted to law enforcement in a number of prescribed ways, such as wireless web services, USB, or Bluetooth 2.0
Be provider-certified that the device meets the proper specifications

Why ELD’s?

The goal behind the ELD mandate is to, quite simply, provide a more accurate way to track, manage, and share records of duty status (RODS) information. Doing so helps ensure that there is a standard across the industry while upholding the integrity of the data that was previously more prone to manual error.

NOW is Crunch Time

A recent article on Trucks.com reported that as many as 1 million of the nation’s 3.5 million truckers have yet to prepare for the new rule, according to Chris Harlow, director of operations at Zed Connect Inc., a Los Angeles ELD provider. Obviously, this is a major concern in the industry and the clock is really ticking. Many truckers has resisted the change objecting that digitally recording their driving is an invasion of privacy. Some drivers have even gone as far as participating in a Twitter campaign, #ELDorMe, to make their voices heard. As of right now, however, the December deadline remains in full force.

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* Photo from TruckPR on Flickr