Electronic Logs for Truckers Will Soon Be Required
After years of debate and calls for change, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has finally published a rule requiring commercial long-haul truck drivers to use electronic, rather than handwritten, logs to track their hours worked. Safety experts hail the change as an important improvement for roadway safety.
The FMCSA requires truckers to maintain logs in order to monitor the number of hours that a driver has been behind the wheel on a given day, and to ensure that the driver does not go beyond the legal limit. However, until now, drivers have had the option to create handwritten logs detailing the hours they’ve driven, taken rest or meal breaks, and taken longer rest periods. These records are often examined when a driver has been in an accident. If those logs reflect that a driver has been on the road longer than is legally allowed, this can result in additional liability for any injuries that resulted from a crash. This gives the driver and carrier company a strong incentive to falsify records if the driver has gone beyond the legal limit in hours driven. Requiring electronic logs will make these logs much more difficult to falsify. Additionally, if a truck driver is pulled over by law enforcement and the officer suspects that the driver is excessively fatigued, the officer can check the driver’s log, and can force the driver to leave the roadway if over the maximum allowable driving hours.
An estimated 3 million commercial drivers will be affected by this change in the law, and will have until December 2017 to implement electronic logging devices in all vehicles. The devices will be required to connect directly to the truck’s engine and will monitor such information as the truck’s location, speed, hours and miles driven, and will need to be able to export data either wirelessly, via USB port, or via Bluetooth. The FMCSA also implemented a rule that bars carrier companies from attempting to coerce drivers into driving more via the logging device, under threat of a substantial monetary fine. The safety organization estimates that this change in the law will save 26 lives and prevent 562 injuries each year.
If you or a loved one have been hurt in a New Jersey truck accident, contact the compassionate and experienced Wayne personal injury attorneys at Massood Law Group for a consultation, at 1-844-4MB-HURT.
