The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) notified the Truck Renting and Leasing Association (TRALA) that it plans to grant the association’s request for a 90-day waiver from the electronic logging device mandate for short-term rental trucks.
The Truck Renting and Leasing Association (TRALA) was notified by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) on Tuesday that the FMCSA plans to grant the TRALA’s request for a 90-day waiver from the electronic logging device (ELD) mandate for short-term rental trucks (defined as 30 days or less), the TRALA said Tuesday.
Although the ELD mandate is scheduled to kick into gear this upcoming Monday, this decision will give all TRALA members until March 18, 2018 to become compliant.
The mandate requires the use of ELDs for commercial trucks and buses. Designed as a replacement for traditional paper logbooks, an ELD synchronizes with a vehicle engine to automatically record driving time.
The ELD rule does not change any of the basic hours-of-service rules or exemptions, but is simply intended to help create a safer work environment for drivers, and make it easier and faster to accurately track, manage and share records of duty status data, the FMCSA explained.
Back in October, the FMCSA granted the TRALA a waiver for rentals of eight days or less, with the waiver set to expire in October 2022.
Based out of Alexandria, Va., the TRALA is a non-profit national trade association that includes over 500 leasing and rental firms and suppliers that make up nearly the entire truck renting and leasing industry.
“Many of the issues unique to TRALA rental members stem from the fact that ELD platforms are not interoperable among themselves,” the TRALA said. “For most trucking fleets this is not a problem, but for situations such as break-downs, seasonal overages and peak times, most fleets and small businesses turn to the truck rental industry for relief. If a fleet has one ELD system but the rental company has another, it is impossible to combine them without building out new systems, which are both costly and time-consuming.”
Penske Truck Leasing, which is a member of the TRALA “applauds the decision to grant a 90-day waiver from the ELD requirement on short-term truck rentals,” Penske Truck Leasing Senior Vice President of Government Relations and Chief Compliance Officer Michael Duff said. “While Penske has released and developed an ELD compliant solution of its own for its rental vehicles and is already equipped for customers to bring their own onboard devices, the additional allotted time will be beneficial to the industry and in further helping our full-service truck leasing and commercial truck rental customers transition successfully with the new regulation.”
Ryder System, Inc., another TRALA member, said, “The waiver will provide a significant benefit to rental customers who would have been faced with a challenging regulatory compliance in the midst of peak holiday season.”
Ryder recently launched its own ELD platform, which was created in partnership with Geotab. Rental customers have the option to use Ryder’s ELD solution or their own portable ELD equipment, Ryder explained.
“As technology advances and commercial rental fleets devise new methods and systems to adapt to the ELD rules, it is possible that TRALA members will be able to offer their customers a seamless strategy to comply with the rule but having more time to address these issues was critical to TRALA in its request for a waiver,” the TRALA said.
Although the ELD rule is taking effect in less than a week, a phased-in approach will be used to enforce its requirements. The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance revealed back in August that it will begin enforcing the ELD mandate requirements Dec. 18, with inspectors and roadside enforcement personnel documenting violations on roadside inspection reports and, at the jurisdiction’s discretion, issuing citations to commercial motor vehicle drivers operating vehicles without a compliant ELD, but that non-compliant vehicles will not be placed out of service until April 1, 2018.
FMCSA grants TRALA 90-day waiver from ELD mandate
