A safety panel on Wednesday, Feb. 8, finalized a report on mitigating the use of electronic onboard recorders to harass drivers that provides suggestions to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
The document from FMCSA’s Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee contained information the agency should explore in any rulemaking on EOBRs for hours of service compliance.
Following the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision last August that vacated the 2010 limited mandate for EOBRs for certain noncompliant carriers, the harassment issue may be the key consideration for the agency. The agency has expressed intent to devise a rule that mandates some version of electronic logging devices for virtually all trucks in interstate commerce.
The MCSAC concluded four days of meetings in Alexandria, Va., on Thursday, Feb. 9.
Harassment issues relative to electronic logs cover driver relationships with law enforcement personnel and with carriers, tilting heavily toward the latter and favoring drivers’ positions in certain instances. For example, a Feb. 8 draft said, “Drivers should be able to save records of carrier contact with drivers.”
The statement was presented relative to an item about the difficulty of regulating the role EOBRs can play in hours of service compliance.
“Trying to regulate the difference between productivity measures and carrier actions that result in harassment is difficult because it should be judged by a standard of reasonableness that could be interpreted differently based on a specific factual circumstance,” the item read.
“I’m glad we have some recognition by this committee of the fact that dispatchers can lie,” said MCSAC member Calvin Sturdivant, of Community Coach.
In the same section, the committee spelled out the need for any EOBR regulation to avoid giving carriers what could be considered a harassment-enabling tool. “You cannot regulate bad management practices,” the report read. “You cannot prevent a carrier from pressuring a driver to do his/her job in a potentially unsafe way, yet that is the situation you want to avoid.”
The report suggests the agency “consider civil penalty sanctions as deterrents for harassment” and/or “seek out current regulations that appropriately address” any driver complaint that is made. Also suggested was FMCSA-led training for driver supervisors and law enforcement regarding what could constitute harassment.
Debate about limiting real-time two-way communication with the devices ended with the committee in part divided on the subject of whether such fleet management tools should be required to be included in new standards for the devices. Both the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and Teamsters Union representatives on the committee, in addition to others, opposed requiring such tools to be a part of any electronic logging system.
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I disagree with Clyde C. Kerns' comment on the EOBR report.....article. And I disagree entirely with Greg Woolman. In all honesty, Mr Woolman is a boob. The truth about EOBRs in a nutshell; PRODUCTIVITY! To see this all one need do is look at who's pushing em. Beside the FMCSA, large motor carriers are. Large trucking companies see EOBRs as a means of controlling the market in trucking they have largely failed to completely control so far. Growth and acquisition of market share through production control is their method of choice. Big trucking companies feel EOBRs will do two things. First they think EOBRs will level the playing field by making sure smaller companies and owner ops behave themselves; control the competition by law. More on that. Second they want to control their own company drivers by EOBRs. They think EOBRs will allow them to force company drivers to maximize their HOS. Another words make sure your own people are running to the max and your competition is behaving! EOBRs also align company drivers to fit the logistical operational model of their customers and the culture of JIT freight. Who cares if the driver is tired.... Of course the backup plan is simple; tired? Well you must have a medical problem, ie sleep apnea. One could really start to see what's really going on if one simply connects the dots. The other problem with EOBRs from a drivers perspective is that it serves to validate the sense that only driving counts as work. And this will only lead to exacerbate a already problem with the industry itself. I hope I've made my point!!!
This industry is ripe with data manipulation. But it takes a lot more effort to change electronic data than paper records. Log books are a joke and we all know it. We complain about not getting paid for what we do in this industry but when there is a potentially better way to level the playing field, people, for what ever reason, stand up to defend a system that no longer works. Drivers should be paid for sitting at customers; not asked to show time off in the paper log so they can run longer than the 14 hours and not be compensated for it. Anyone who has driven a truck knows this does happen. EOBRs make this falsification much more difficult. If a driver is harrassed by a carrier then he should go work elsewhere. Good carriers are desparate for good drivers. The harrassment will not last long.
Wow as a fleet owner I never viewed the offering of a job as harassment. Nor have I considered the expectation of an employee doing the requirements of the job harassment. If a driver is out of hours he needs to stop and rest, if the shipper or dispatcher does not understand the variables of the business, delays at all levels of the transportation chain then perhaps he needs to maintain a little higher inventory level. Is it just me or does just in time production management only lead to unreasonable pressure on transportation providers. Maybe mandated EOBR's would enable the industry to present the facts to our customers, and allow our industry to charge an appropriate rate for a service rendered not keep us under unreasonable expectations where we all must angle and manipulate traffic lanes to survive. Please understand this, you have to internalize your externalities; as government demands continued regulation their will be a cost associated with their implementation,the shippers; and ultimately their customers need to get ready for some serious inflation.
To Mr. Woolmans' point that paper logs are a joke; WRONG!! Paper logs are actually better. The paper log serves as the bases for when a driver is ready to roll. This is the long standing honor system by which the driver determines when he is ready. Being ready to roll is not just a matter of regaining hours to drive. A OTR truck driver eats and sleeps on the road and in the truck. The EOBR creates a sense that a driver must drive&sleep/drive&sleep. The EOBR also exacerbates the notion that only driving counts as work since it is unable to automatically compute any other activity. To make matters worse the ATA, the lobby arm of big trucking companies is trying to get the FMCSA to not require RODS(record of duty status). The reason is clear. It is RODS that show on-duty activity. RODS are things like scale tickets in&out times on BOLs etc. It is by this paper trail that a driver can and should prove he is working on top of driving. If EOBRs become the law of the land RODS must remain a part of any audit. And drivers must be made to show all work outside of driving on line 4 of any EOBR or else the driving will be literally up around the clock in detention of the truck&load. To the point about paper logs being a joke. Consider this: under our current system if a driver leaves Wa drives to Ca then Tx up to In then Pa. The total aggregate miles would still have to be accounted for on any audit. RODS would show fuel stops & any other paper trail left that would have to match the log. I think its clear, EOBRs will take away how and when that work is produce. And it is here where the abuse and harrassment factor comes in. As I've already indicated in a prior comment productivity&control is driving the EOBR rule making
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