Electronic tracking has been required on semi-trucks for 5 years. Fatalities haven't decreased.

You are correct. Stupidity is the biggest problem in the industry. That's what happens when the mega carriers hire anything with a pulse.

 

Using the BLS data is somewhat misleading. It takes into account all people who have driving jobs and not just truck drivers. Many of those jobs don’t have to follow ELDs. A traveling salesman who dies in a car accident is counted in those statistics. Those crazy Amazon sprinter van drivers are included in the BLS data.

 

ELD is one shoe fits all. That moron pete bootygeeg spent 30 minutes inside truck with some driver and thinks he knows everything about trucking. We got clowns running the show-need former drivers in fmcsa. Better yet disband whole ####### club of clowns who only make it worse for us-drivers

 

Do you have any data to back that up?

Because my company saw almost a 25% reduction in dot reportable accidents in 2020, which is greater than the overall trend. None of our drivers used the "exemption".

 

Most commercial airline pilots are unionized but the majority of pilots are not. Meaning business jets, air charters etc. and air cargo.

 

Man I'm like you. I love ELDs too. It's so much easier, I don't have to worry about keeping it caught up so that "looks good." On paper, I'd be too tired to finish it off and sign it. The ELD is nice. Touch the screen, certify, go to sleep. Love it.

 

How many trucks using the exemption? And were those trucks constantly using the exemption or switching back to the HOS after the exempt load?

In short, what was the crash rate per million miles of drivers using the exemption? How does that compare to the crash rate per million miles of drivers following the HOS?

"It is unclear how many hours either driver had been on the road or what affect, if any, the emergency declaration had on the crashes."​

"FMCSA learned about the crashes through state partners or through self-reporting from the carriers."
​

Those two quotes lead me to conclude that there is no real data on who was using the exemption, and in what way they were using it.

From a quick persual of fmcsa reports (for some reason 2021 isn't final yet?) it looks like crashes per million miles for 2021 are on par with 2019, and total dot reportable accidents are below 2000 levels despite a 15% increase in miles run.

You can blame elds, but elds just enforce the HOS, so you need to blame the HOS, and you can blame the HOS, but when you start breaking down accidents, particularly fatal accidents, by million miles traveled they're still lower than they were in the 1990s.

If you want to place the blame on the recnt rise in accidents where it needs to be you need to look at cdl instruction and testing.

There is no reason why any one with a cdl should not be able to pass our 1st week of training. Outside of some company specific things like coupling order and introducing button hooks, it's cdl school light. Yet we get guys who don't known the difference between an alternator and an air dryer, let alone understand how to properly set their mirrors.

Our training program isn't hard, and our standards aren't that high. Yet I would argue we have one of the best new driver training programs in the industry. That is where the problem lies.