The American Trucking Associations, along with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance and AAA, have released a video urging members of Congress to support an electronic onboard recorder mandate for large trucks to improve driver and carrier compliance with hours-of-service rules.
“This collaboration and coming together of the trucking industry, the law enforcement community and the motoring public around a single issue underscores how important this proposal is,” says Bill Graves, ATA president and chief executive officer. “We hope that Congress won’t miss this opportunity to do something that will have a measurable, and positive, impact on the safety of our highways.”
“There’s a definite linkage between problem actors and future crash involvement,” says Steve Keppler, CVSA executive director. To view the video, go to www.trucking.org/Pages/improving.aspx.
The video features Steve Rush, founder and president of Wharton, N.J.-based Carbon Express Inc. and a former owner-operator with experience with the weaknesses of paper logs. “I’m a reformed cheater … I made money doing that,” Rush says. “We need these electronic logs for sure.”
By including a requirement for EOBRs, Chris Plaushin, AAA federal relations director, says that “Congress has an important opportunity to help make the road safer.” The video also pushes back on arguments voices by opponents of the requirement – namely privacy and cost.
Keppler says privacy was a “non-issue” since an EOBR collects information that’s already required: “It’s just converting it from paper to electronic.” Graves says that as far cost concerns go, “an EOBR costs less than a couple of tires on an 18-wheeler. And the costs keep coming down.”
