Law aimed at trucker fatigue needs to go into effect as planned
In an era when slashing regulations is celebrated, there is a new one coming into effect that we need to defend.
For years the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which I imagine most readers have never heard of, has limited truckers to driving no more than 11 hours, or working anything more than a 14-hour day, without a 10-hour break. These limits have dramatically reduced the number of big rig accidents due to driver fatigue.
For you and me, that means a lower chance of an 80,000-pound truck smashing into our cars at 70 mph.
Enforcing this law, though, has never been easy. Since the 1930s, truckers have kept paper logs that regulators can inspect to make sure no one is cheating. But by some estimates, 15 percent to 20 percent of drivers fudge their logs to squeeze out extra hours and make extra money.
In the 2017 fiscal year, state law enforcement officers put 30,274 truck drivers out of service for falsifying their logs, the highest number yet, the safety administration reported. And those are only the ones who got caught.
Increasingly, truckers are under pressure to make more runs and deliver cargoes faster than ever. Any regulation of trucking, therefore, has far-reaching consequences.
To address cheating, Congress voted four years ago to require truckers to connect electronic logging devices, or ELDs, to vehicle engines. The administration published the regulation two years ago and gave truckers until Dec. 18 of this year to install the device, which is essentially a modified GPS system.
The American Trucking Associations and major trucking companies embraced the requirement, recognizing how the rule would improve safety and reduce potential liabilities. But independent truckers, who own their own rigs, are calling the requirement an oppressive regulation imposed by Big Brother.
Demonstrations began
springing up across the country earlier this year using the Twitter hashtag, #ELDorMe. Opponents complain that buying the equipment is expensive, though they cost $495 on average. They say paper logs never fail, even though some drivers routinely cheat.
The truckers’ tweets got President Donald Trump’s attention in May, and he replied: “ELD’s are very unfair. Truckers voted for me, so mark my words. I will end the ELD mandate.”
Seven months later, though, the regulations are still on track. So independent truckers launched protests nationwide on Monday, tweeting demands that Trump keep his word.
“Hey MR president @ realDonaldTrump listen to the truck drivers the small guys like you said when you were elected,” Florida driver Leo Hernandez tweeted Monday. “This ELD mandate will put me out of business #ELDORME.”
Drivers are undoubtedly under pressure, with shippers desperate to keep costs down and truckers wasting far too much time waiting for loading or unloading at distribution centers. Drivers are not paid by the hour. They are paid to deliver loads on time, so they hate the idea of a computer minder forcing them to pull over for 10 hours in the middle of a run.
Lifting the mandate, though, would be a big mistake. That’s because if we’re being honest, the only reason to resist installing an ELD is to keep cheating.
As safety expert Brian Fielkow, owner of Houston-based Jetco Delivery, explained to me, drivers who violate the time in service rule hurt those who follow it, like Jetco, which installed ELDs in 2008. Uniform enforcement would also force shippers to acknowledge the federal rules and pay truckers better since they cannot cheat anymore.
“We’ll all be playing by the same set of rules,” he said. “It ensures the drivers that nobody’s going to push them beyond the legal hours. It has a great benefit for trucking companies, because I can see where the trucks are in real time.”
The devices also cut back on paperwork because drivers don’t need to maintain paper logs. Trucking companies don’t have to calculate hours of service to figure out who can work because a computer does it for them.
“From the shippers’ standpoint, they can know where their shipment is down to the blade of grass,” Fielkow added.
There will be some drivers who will follow through on the promise of #ELDorMe and retire. And since the average truck driver is 55, this could lead to fewer drivers for an industry already suffering a labor shortage. Some shippers may also see deliveries take longer than under the current system.
“If it was too good to be true in terms of how fast your cargo was getting there, it probably was too good to be true,” Fielkow said. “And that’s going to change.”
Over the next two weeks, some truckers will make a lot of noise calling on Trump to roll back this “burdensome regulation.” But they had two years to install ELDs, and they wasted that time.
Every American who travels the highways or believes in level playing fields should support this law. Because waiting an extra day for a new pair of shoes is worth saving lives.