Truck renting association seeks ELD exemption for short-term rentals

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Updated Mar 28, 2017
The Truck Renting and Leasing Association is seeking an exemption from the electronic logging device mandate for truck rentals of 30 days or fewer.The Truck Renting and Leasing Association is seeking an exemption from the electronic logging device mandate for truck rentals of 30 days or fewer.

The Truck Renting and Leasing Association, made up of Ryder, Penske and other commercial vehicle renting and leasing companies, is seeking an exemption from the electronic logging device mandate for trucks rented for 30 days or fewer.

TRALA says the ELD mandate, which has a compliance date of Dec. 18, will “unfairly and adversely affect short-term rental vehicles.”

The group says it supports the ELD rule. While many drivers who rent trucks will use ELDs, it says, it is unlikely that the driver’s ELD will communicate properly with the rental truck’s telematics platform, given the wide array of devices and subscription options available.

TRALA adds that it has two main concerns – data transfer and data liability. For data transfer, it says that a driver or fleet required to use an ELD may rent a truck that has one operating system, the driver or fleet may use a different one in its trucks, and the data cannot be transferred from the rental to the other truck unless they are on the same system. The group adds that it would also be a problem for a driver to pull his or her duty status from the previous seven days if requested by law enforcement if the rental ELD is not compatible with the driver’s normal ELD.

With data liability concerns, TRALA says it has suggested rental companies should be able to collect and report ELD data to customers, giving them access to the data, but the final ELD rule doesn’t require ELDs to be capable of reading exported data from other providers. Additionally, requiring the leasing companies to safeguard the data for each renter, TRALA says, would increase risk for rental companies.

TRALA adds that short-term rentals that require drivers to report hours-of-service represent an “extremely small percentage of trucks on the road,” and allowing drivers of short-term rentals to operate with paper logs would allow the drivers to comply with all federal and state hours-of-service regulations.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is seeking public comment on the exemption request, which can be made here.