On January 19, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) published in the Federal Register a three-month ELD mandate waiver for short-term rental trucks.
The exemption was sought by the Truck Rental and Leasing Association (TRALA) late last year and took effect on January 19. It would run until April 19, 2018.
The 90-day waiver — which is a one-time exemption — allows short-term rental trucks to use paper logs to record their hours of service (HOS) and grants rental companies more time to install an electronic logging device (ELD).
TRALA is a group of nearly 500 member companies that operate in more than 5,000 commercial leasing and rental locations, as well as more than 20,000 consumer rental locations throughout the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
The FMCSA informed TRALA on December 12 last year that the waiver was coming.
TRALA said that as soon as the waiver was posted, a short-term rental truck driver could print a copy and carry it in their vehicle during the exemption period, which they would then present to safety enforcement personnel upon request.
To view and print out the waiver, click here.
In their petition, TRALA was concerned “about the unintended technical and operational consequences that will unfairly and adversely affect short-term rental vehicles.”
The association also expressed worry over the “lack of interoperability between the motor carrier’s ELD technology and the rental company’s telematics platform, potentially precluding data transfer between the two systems,” as well as “data liability, particularly if the rental companies needed to bear the burden of safeguarding data on behalf of the motor carrier.”
While granting TRALA’s 90-day ELD waiver, the FMCSA said: “The Agency has determined that granting this waiver is in the public interest and will likely achieve a level of safety that is equivalent to the level that would be achieved absent the waiver, based on the terms and conditions imposed.”
After the ELD mandate took effect on December 18, TRALA said that many safety enforcement officers were unaware of the waiver, resulting in confusion among several of the association’s members.
With the waiver already published, TRALA expects the inspection process to become “much simpler.”
The waiver notice published in the Federal Register enumerated the following terms and conditions.
TRALA has been given a 90-day exemption from the ELD mandate for short-term rental trucks. The association justified the request by citing “unintended technical and operational consequences that will unfairly and adversely affect short-term rental vehicles.”
After April 19, 2018, short-term rental trucks would be required to comply with the ELD mandate. In the meanwhile, non-exempt truckers are already required to comply with the FMCSA’s final ELD rule.
For carriers who have not yet transitioned to ELDs, we highly recommend that they check our ELD price comparison tool and ELD features comparison tool so they can find an affordable and feature-rich ELD solution for their trucking business.