An alternative take on speeding violation rates under the ELD mandate

Among other conclusions reached by a team of researchers who published this month the results of their study on crash rates since the ELD mandate took effect, the report asserted that the number of unsafe driving violations, particularly for speeding, has increased since the mandate began.

However, Steve Bryan, CEO of data firm Vigillo, says he hasn’t seen that trend in the data he’s analyzed since the mandate took effect. In fact, he says, he’s seen the opposite trend — speeding violations have gone down. “And it’s dramatic,” he said.

Bryan says he “ran [data] on the whole industry” on speeding violations days before the other researchers released their findings. He analyzed the eight months leading up to the April 1, 2018, hard enforcement date and the eight months after that. “Industry wide, there’s a very dramatic decrease in speeding violations,” he says.

He says he’s not disputing the researchers findings on crashes, but the points about an uptick in speeding violations “doesn’t give us a fair look at what this industry has done since the ELD mandate” took effect, he says.

Bryan says he’s also heard anecdotal evidence backing up that conclusion in conversations with fleet managers. He attributes the decrease in speeding violations he’s seen to broader use of telematics systems, which carriers often adopt as part of their ELD systems and which measure a truck’s speed and can often communicate that speed with back-office parties. With carriers having greater access to drivers’ speed data, drivers tend to slow down, he says.

The study’s chief conclusions were that, since ELD enforcement began, truck-involved crash rates have not dropped, despite a demonstrable decrease in hours of service violations. Read a recap of the report’s conclusions at this link.