No final rule on EOBRs this year, FMCSA Administrator Ferro says

Ferro said the agency would address the harassment deficiency through a series of listening sessions and input from the FMCSA’s Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee.

By LYNDON FINNEY
The Trucker Staff

2/3/2012

PEORIA, Ill. — It’s extremely unlikely there will be a final rule on Electronic On-Board Recorders this year.

Acknowledging that her agency “suffered a bit of a setback” when an appeals court threw out the so-called remedial EOBR rule last year because it did not address using the devices to harass drivers, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Administrator Anne Ferro said Friday that the agency would issue a second proposed rule for public comment sometime later this year.

The agency issued a proposed EOBR rulemaking in January 2011 that would require all carriers to use EOBRs and had hoped to have that final rule in place sometime last year. But the proposed rule, which would have become effective three years after the date of publication, dealt with driver harassment in virtually the same manner as the rule that was vacated.

Addressing delegates to the Mid-West Truckers Association 2012 Convention and Truck Show here, Ferro said the FMCSA was determined to press forward with an EOBR rule because “I strongly feel, and many in the industry feel, that is the best tool by which we can ensure compliance with Hours of Service from an enforcement perspective.”

Ferro said the agency would address the harassment deficiency through a series of listening sessions and input from the FMCSA’s Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee.

One of the listening sessions will be held at the Mid-America Trucking Show scheduled for March 22-24 at Louisville, Ky. An exact date, time and location for the listening session has not been announced.

“We also hope our Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC) can help us understand what carriers think of as harassment, what drivers consider harassment, what are the actions carriers use to harass drivers and what are some preventive measures.”

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Ferro said the new proposed rule would also address the issues of Hours of Service supporting documents as well as updating the technical specifications.

Ferro also told the delegates:

• That the agency would push forward with research on the daily driving limit. “We want to find out what’s happening between the 10th and the 11 hours. There’s no research to date that’s provided a level of clarity as to whether there is a greater crash risk between the two periods,” she said.

• The FMCSA is continuing its research on detention time “because it is clear that it impacts the driver’s fatigue level and the driver’s stress level because it uses up so much of that driver’s on duty time. We don’t have authority over shippers, but we will use our findings to reinforce the responsibility I feel shippers have in this issue.” She said companies that use EOBRs report they can use the data from the devices to point out to shippers when detention time is negatively impacting the carrier and the driver. She called excessive detention time “grossly unfair.”

• The agency is planning to create a CSA crash accountability process so that a carrier can request the FMCSA to remove a crash from its record and that of its driver when evidence indicates the carrier was not at fault. Carriers will have the opportunity to challenge crash data before it becomes public, she said.

The Trucker staff can be reached to comment on this article at editor@thetrucker.com.

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