TRALA requests ELD waiver for rental trucks through end of 2018

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The Truck Renting and Leasing Association has been granted a 90-day exemption through April 19 from the ELD mandate. It has also announced it has filed a petition for an exemption to last through the end of the year.The Truck Renting and Leasing Association has been granted a 90-day exemption through April 19 from the ELD mandate. It has also announced it has filed a petition for an exemption to last through the end of the year.

The Truck Renting and Leasing Association has officially been granted its request for a 90-day waiver from the electronic logging device mandate until April 19. The group also announced it has filed a petition for an exemption from the ELD mandate through the end of 2018.

TRALA announced in December the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration would grant the extension of compliance, and the agency published the notice in the Federal Register last week. The extension applies to short-term rental trucks, defined as 30 days or less.

According to TRALA, inspectors have been unaware since the ELD mandate went into effect on Dec. 18 of the waiver for rental trucks, creating confusion for some TRALA members.

Drivers of short-term rentals can now print out the exemption and carry it in their cab to show officers during an inspection. These drivers can use paper logs to record their hours for the duration of the waiver.

In order to meet the requirements for the waiver, carriers that are found to have replaced a 30-day rental with another would be in violation of the waiver. Carriers must also have a “Satisfactory” rating to use the waiver.

Following the publication of the waiver in the Federal Register, TRALA announced it filed another petition with FMCSA for an exemption from the ELD mandate through the end of year due to compliance complexities for truck rental companies.

The group says by filing now, it gives FMCSA time to publish the petition in the Federal Register an open it for public comments. TRALA says the exemption would give rental and leasing companies more time to “develop compliance strategies for dealing with the unique issues relating to the use of ELDs in short-term rental vehicles.”

The difficulty, TRALA says, stems from a lack of interoperability between ELD platforms, causing rental trucks to offer ELD compliance options for a variety of platforms based on each customer’s need.