Federal Agency Says Incidents of False Logs on the Rise
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the agency tasked with monitoring and regulating commercial trucking operations, has reported that the number of citations for maintaining false driver logs has gone up by as much as 20% over the last five years. Data collected in 2017 showed that more than 30,000 drivers were issued “out of service” orders that year for falsifying driving logs.
Under federal trucking regulations, drivers are limited in the amount of time they can spend on the road. For drivers hauling only goods, there’s a limit of 11 consecutive hours on the road after a minimum of 10 consecutive hours off duty. If a driver is carrying passengers, the limit is 10 hours after 8 hours off duty. Drivers may not be behind the wheel more than 60 hours over seven days, or more than 70 hours over eight days. Drivers with cargo must take at least 30 minutes off every eight hours. Drivers hauling cargo who have a sleeper berth in their truck must have at least eight hours in the berth plus another two hours off duty (or in the sleeper berth). Drivers carrying passengers who use a sleeper berth must spend at least eight hours in the berth, but may divide the time in two sections, provided each is at least two hours.
The data gathered was compiled before the FMCSA mandated electronic logging devices (ELDs) for more than 3 million commercial truck drivers. The ELDs are electronic devices installed in trucks that allow for electronic tracking of hours on the road. The FMCSA doesn’t yet have data to accurately assess the effectiveness of the ELDs, but anticipates that hours of service violations will be dramatically reduced.
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