At a meeting of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance on Thursday, April 26, in Bellevue, Wash., representatives of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration took two hours’ worth of testimony from trucking industry representatives relative to the agency’s published intention to issue a broad mandate for electronic onboard recorders to monitor drivers’ hours.
The primary issue was an exploration of whether the devices could be used as tools for carriers and/or law enforcement to harass drivers. Carrier representatives already utilizing EOBRs expressed support of the effort of a broader mandate, while owner-operators urged FMCSA to consider existing affordable alternatives to hours enforcement and address the root causes of hours noncompliance.
Tim Dean, a company driver for Omaha, Neb.-based Werner Enterprises, said he has been operating under some form of automated hours monitoring for the entirety of his 23-year 3-million-mile-plus safe driving career. “I believe the perception [among drivers] of EOBRs is negative, but over the years, they’ve become a bigger asset to me,” Dean said, citing the dispatch/trip-planning efficiency the devices help enable as a tool to actually mitigate “harassment during off hours.”
Dean’s comments were echoed by Schneider National representative Andrea Sequin, who testified that, following the carrier’s first full year of EOBR implementation, drivers called the EOBR a “pressure-release valve” of sorts. Pressure to run beyond endurance limits, Sequin said, “is more likely in the paper log environment.” The Green Bay, Wis.-based carrier also has seen a 70 percent decline in fatigue-related crashes following EOBR implementation and a modest productivity and on-time service decline, she said.
Don Lacy, safety director for Springfield, Mo.-based Prime Inc., concurred with Sequin, noting that the fleet continually polls its drivers about its EOBRs and the harassment issue. “With EOBRs, you have total transparency,” noted Lacy, who participated in the Webcast session. “Drivers and operations have the same information.”
Under questioning from FMCSA, however, Dean noted that it currently was impossible for him to retain communication from dispatch through his Qualcomm unit for any extended period of time without retrieving it from the carrier back office. “In the future, we’ll be able to print off of” the unit, Dean said. “Now, if I want to retain it, I have to keep it on the screen. … I’ve never had a need to.”
