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Why does the trucking industry fight the electronic on-board recorder mandate?

Motor carriers like the old paper and carbon-copy log books, which are so easy to fake that some have started calling them “comic books”.

The truck accident attorneys of the Young Firm in New Orleans have always fought for a better enforcement of the Hours of Service regulations. In our view, this can only be achieved by the mandatory use of electronic tracking devices. Not surprisingly, the trucking industry is not so keen.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) and three of its members have filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for review of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) mandate to install electronic on-board recorders (EOBRs). In a first step, these EOBRs will be compulsory on all vehicles of motor carriers found in chronic non-compliance of the hours-of-service regulations.

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The electronic devices track the truck’s movement, combining records of location, distance, speed, and time. Quite obviously, any change in the trucker’s duty status has to be done manually. The driver must put in the “black box” whether he is off-duty (resting or sleeping) or on-duty (loading, unloading, waiting, doing maintenance, etc.). His driving time is already recorded by the integrated GPS (global positioning system) of the black box.

A truck’s log provides essential evidence that the driver and the motor carrier either do or do not follow the stringent federal rules on maximum on-duty hours and minimum hours of rest, per 24 hours and seven or eight day-periods. The rules should prevent accidents due to driver fatigue, a major source of devastating truck accidents. As is often the case, truckers are pressured by carriers to keep on driving to reach destinations on time, or they are motivated by a pay system linked to driven distance. Many Louisiana truckers are sleep-deprived due to long waiting times, unloading and loading operations, traffic jams, or bad weather conditions.

The antiquated system of paper and carbon-copy log books can be faked at will. Some drivers keep two sets of books, depending on who wants to look at them. EOBRs may not be the perfect solution, as discussion continues about the final specifications of the devices, but they are far more difficult to fake because so many parameters are registered without human intervention. After intense lobbying by major motor carriers, two U.S. senators introduced a bill two months ago to allow the information contained in EOBRs to be used exclusively by the owner of the device. In other words, this bill would allow trucking companies to use the evidence when it is favorable to their case and hide it when not.

Victims of a truck accident and their family members would be denied the right to compensation after being seriously injured or killed in a crash due to a trucker falling asleep. We can only hope that this bill will be rejected and that common sense will prevail.

If you have been hurt in an accident caused by a truck in Louisiana, then immediately contact the Young Firm in New Orleans for a free consultation of your case. You can call our truck accident attorney at (504) 680-4100 (local) or (866) 660-7220 (toll free), or send us an e-mail.

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