The Trucking Alliance, a coalition of some of the country’s largest trucking companies, has issued a policy statement calling for state legislatures in all states to pass laws requiring intrastate drivers to use an electronic logging device.
Federal law requires states to review regulations and “achieve compatibility with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations,” providing states up to three years to harmonize their safety regs with those from FMCSA. The federal ELD mandate was enacted in February 2016 (the compliance date for which was December 2017), meaning states have until next February to harmonize their regs with the federal mandate.
Several states have already adopted the requirement for intrastate truckers, though not via a statute from their state legislature. Instead, state regulators simply adopted the language of the federal ELD mandate for their state. Florida is the lone standout, having passed legislation last year to require intrastate truckers to adopt an ELD by this December.
However, the Trucking Alliance wants state lawmakers to go a step beyond simply harmonizing their regulations with those of the federal government. The Alliance, which is made up of carriers like Knight, Swift, Schneider, J.B. Hunt, Maverick Transportation and others, wants state legislatures pass laws to implement an ELD mandate for intrastate haulers.
