Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Transportation announced it will not enforce the ELD mandate on short-term rental trucks for another three months.
- The waiver from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration comes in response to a request from the Truck Renting and Leasing Association.
- TRALA expressed concerns about interoperability between the truck's ELD technology and the rental company platform and said the waiver would allow "critical additional time to develop compliance strategies."
Dive Insight:
This latest waiver shows the federal government is willing to listen and work with industry to create the safest standards for trucking. But it also shows the kinks aren't completely worked out, despite the ELD mandate being years in the making.
Before the mandate went into effect, UPS asked that drivers be permitted to change their duty status through mobile devices, which FMCSA allowed. The agency also granted a temporary waiver to agriculture commodity carriers.
The FMCSA only partially accepted the petition from TRALA. The association, which works with members such as Penske, Ryder and U-Haul, asked for truck rentals of 30 days or less to be permanently exempted from the mandate.
TRALA feared coordination issues between the driver's ELD system and rental truck company's system, forcing the driver to manually log hours of service. The extension from the FMCSA allows extra time to ensure systems are compatible.
The ELD mandate continues to face a great deal of resistance from the industry. Some smaller carriers in particular were reluctant to adopt the new rules, due to costs of both technology and new training, and many truck drivers found the mandate inconvenient to their daily routines.
The legislation went forward against all odds, and come April, we'll be watching to see how enforcement plays out.
