In mid-December the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration finally released its ruling on electronic logging. The regulation is set to go into effect in mid-March.

The federal government has long been involved in the regulating and monitoring of professional truck and bus drivers. The paper log book system has been required since 1938. The initial ruling on the use of electronic logs was first adopted in 2011, but has been slow to be implemented.According to the FMCSA, the electronic logging devices will record the driving time by monitoring the engine hours, vehicle movement, miles driven and location information."This automated technology not only brings logging into the modern age, it also allows roadside safety inspectors to unmask violations of federal law that puts lives at risk," said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx in a recent Associated Press interview.White Haven resident and owner-operator Andrezej Luchowski is not bothered by the pending changeover to electronic logging."I am an independent, but I mainly operate under a contract to a larger, national company. My contractor has required me to comply with electronic logging for the last three years," he said.Luchowski demonstrated the unit, which resembles a computer keyboard and has a satellite receiver located on the roof of his truck."When you start out, you have eight hours on the log, you have an additional three hours for loading and unloading. If you stop for 30 minutes during that first eight hours of driving, the system will add three additional hours of drive time per day," Luchowski said."If you are away from home overnight, the system also allows 45 minutes of personal driving time, so you can go to the store or dinner."Luchowski also says that the logging devices can also be used to send drivers directions, messages and warnings when their time is getting close to running out."The last hour of your drive time you will start to get a message every 15 minutes reminding you that you are close to running out of time," he said. "If a driver keeps driving past the allotted time, the company can actually contact the driver and demand that you pull off the road. When you are an independent, you can't afford to rack up violations and expect the company to keep using your service."Luchowski purchased the system for his truck about three years ago at a cost of $3,000 and he continues to pay a subscription fee for the service to Qualcomm at a rate of $35 per week.As an independent, shorter hauling driver, Luchowski said he didn't know if the impact would be greater on long-haul, over-the-road truckers.Schneider is a large trucking company which has a significant presence in Pennsylvania and has a terminal in Pittston.According to Erin Elliott, account manager for public relations and social media for Schneider, the company has been fully compliant with the electronic logging devices since 2013.Elliott said the company is in the process of examining the new 516-page document to get "complete insight" of the final ruling."ELDs facilitate driver compliance of hours of service rules through standardized data capture. Hours of service data cannot be measured accurately nor enforced uniformly, without this mandatory electronic data capture," Elliott said. "ELDs are a great step toward truly understanding where the industry is on the safety spectrum. This data should be used to evaluate what step need to be taken to make our industry safer before further regulatory actions are proposed or implemented."Truck driving schoolLehigh Carbon Community College has one of the longest-running truck driving schools in Pennsylvania. The program has been around for over 35 years and trains not only truck drivers but CDL examiners as well."We are proud of our program here at LCCC," said CDL Training and Testing Program Director, Dante Staciokas. "We have a well-rounded staff of instructors with over 300 years of experience between them."According to Staciokas, the rule going into effect in March is for companies, which currently do not use any form of real-time electronic logging. Others like Luchowski have until December 2017 to update their systems. The goal is to have all electronic logging devices meet the same technical specifications and be certified and registered with FMCSA by that date."Originally drivers were against the units. It's like wearing an electronic dog collar," Staciokas said. "The cops and weights and measures people like them because when they see the sticker they know they don't need to check the log because it's already being monitored in real time. On the other hand it has cut into their revenue streams, because 'comic books,' which is what log books were referred to, can be doctored, and that is where a lot of the fines came from."Now you can't cheat. You don't have exhausted drivers running up and down the roads trying to beat a clock."Staciokas also said the insurance industry has reflected its approval of the ELDs with lower insurance premiums.What Staciokas points out as very interesting is that after the initial implementation of the units by companies such as Schneider, a large number of drivers left the industry."We have had a shortage of truck drivers for a while," Staciokas said. "These were drivers who were looking for the 'freedom of the road.' We have spent years trying to get rid of the 'Smokey and the Bandit' mentality. It is different now, and frankly we have 10 recruiters waiting to hire each of our graduates."Drivers who graduate from the LCCC program pass their CDL as part of their graduation requirements. When hired they go into a six to eight week company-sponsored driver training program.Staciokas says that not everybody is cut out to be a truck driver and that he and his fellow instructors are not afraid to dismiss someone from their program."We take pride in our graduates they are a reflection on our program and the college," he said.OppositionNot everyone is accepting of the mandate. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association filed a lawsuit the day the ruling was made public in December. The OOIDA had previously filed a suit in 2011 arguing that the regulation was a "harassment of drivers."The new suit does not set forth any arguments that will be used. But President and CEO of the organization Jim Johnson, has made it clear that they stand opposed to the regulation."We intend to fight it with everything we have available," said Johnson in a recent news release. "This regulation is absolutely the most outrageous intrusion into the rights of professional truckers imaginable and will do nothing at all to improve highway safety."In fact, we firmly believe it will do exactly the opposite by placing even more pressure and stress on driver than they already deal with."The OOIDA is located in Kansas City, Missouri, and has 150,000 members, according to its website.The regulation will apply to all truck and commercial bus drivers. International drivers from Mexico and Canada will have to comply while driving in the U.S.The FMCSA estimates that the use of ELDs will save 26 lives and prevent 562 injuries per year.