FMCSA investigation due to ELD violations? What to expect?

This would be a great point if the system of regulations were equally enforced in all motor carrier operations under any and all conditions.

But they aren’t. Waivers, exemptions and emergency declarations all exist. The regulations can simply *poof* disappear when the chips are down and work needs to be done. All about safety until safety is an inconvenience.

 

reference above for statements below

OP first post above, verbatim from the first page for reference material.

I do not see anywhere in the first post where OP blamed the ELD for anything. OP also goes on to acknowledge they have violations and asks if he can be shutdown for it. You, @ZVar, are pulling your own first two claims from nothing. Now, in later posts (page 5) he also goes on to say he will avoid repeating these violations in the future. You give him no credit for that...at all. Matter of fact, the majority of what you’ve posted is little more than crapping all over someone about to go through an audit. An audit that which DOT will be conducting, not either you or myself.

It sounds more to me like the OP is about to go through their first safety audit that anyone that’s filed and flown their own numbers before has more than likely been through. If OP was as “piss poor” and reckless as you claim, you think they would be here asking questions? Or would they just blow the thing off and wait to be shutdown (and open a different LLC and USDOT). I’d give OP the benefit of the doubt until the DOT finishes their audit and gives him a verdict. They may very well shut them down if things were heinous enough. They may slap them on the wrist and say straighten up.

People are allowed mistakes if corrections are made. Adjust your attitude. You sound fit to blow a gasket.

 

If it’s your first audit you probably won’t have any fines, they will slap your hand and tell you what you’re doing wrong, and then come back in a couple months to make sure you’ve made the changes they said you need to. If not, that’s when the fines come into play usually.

The OP’s post abound about being out of service until 10pm....you’re probably already to the point of having to reschedule your delivery, so unless they physically chased you out of where you were when your 10 hours was up there would be nothing forcing you to start driving at 10pm. Go to bed, get some sleep, start over in the morning.

 

I manage my time every day..

Most days there's an accident or 2 or 3.

And there goes my time.

 

Stealing this. Thanks

 

Normally I agree with at @ZVar and his knowledge of the regs is second to none. But to hold the HOS regs as being sacrosanct is a huge stretch.

This is part of what I wrote to a local newspaper explaining my objections to the rigid enforcement that ELD engender; One can be in compliance with the regulations and still be fatigued and one can be tested, safe and at the same time be in violation of the HOS. Tony is a local driver who works 6 am to 6 pm. His friends call him Thursday afternoon "Tony, we need you! Being a truckdriver, you're the safest bet for a designated driver. We know you won't cheat, and besides, Donna's cousin from Miami will be here!" So Tony is the designated driver and they close the club. Tony is up until 3 with Donna's cousin. He sleeps in and starts at 8. He is completely in compliance except that he is exhausted.

Contrast me, an OTR driver who stops 10 pm, 14 hours after I started. I take 1/2 hour for shower, get 8 hours of sleep, and 1 hour 15 minutes for a morning shower and breakfast. Wide awake, ready to go, I leave at 7:55 am, 5 minutes short of my 10 hours.

Can any thinking person believe that making me take another 10 hour break in order to comply would make me safer?

 

If I sit somewhere for 1 1/2 hours I’ll make it 2 and backlog it for off duty and get a few extra hours drive time. There’s many ways to extend your time if you think outside the box. Use THEIR rules against them.

 

I read a short article in Landline magazine "ELDs are a prime example that regulations don't always equal safety."
Briefly, it says that crashes involving trucks went up, and that according to government's own data. It also says that 90% of drivers involved in fatal crushes (in 2019) did not receive a moving violation.

It is still possible to argue that had there been no ELDs, the crushes would have been higher...But from my own experience, feel and intuition, that's not the case. ELDs as a strict following of HOS contributes to more stress and tension while performing duties.
I am confident that the flexing of some rules that came into effect in September last year helped quite a bit, we'll see. To my surprise though, lots of drivers, their companies and safety departments may not even know how the utilize it, or they may choose not to do so, for the sake of simplicity and difficulties of conveying the potential of the changes to their drivers.

 

To be very honest, the new flexibility rules are not particularly easy to grasp. Even before the added complications, I have had several drivers that simply could not compute a split sleeper scenario and stay legal. With the advent of ELD's I see more drivers who really do not understand HOS beyond "the ELD says I have 3 hours left".

We use every exemption we can, including Ag Exemption and split sleeper, and it makes a HUGE amount of difference. I think you are right to point out the stress that being "under the gun of the clock" adds to a job. If you know you have the ability to stop when you're tired, the overall stress level drops.

 

It was never about safety. The ATA made no bones about wanting to “level the playing field”. Same reason for the continuous push for speed limiters from the ATA. Their member companies treat drivers like a commodity and they wonder why their retention is so low. So if everyone has the same rules and has to drive the same speed the drivers will have no reason to leave a crappy mega carrier because all the companies will be the same, in the eyes of the ATA anyhow.