Congress Rejects Last Bid Effort to Delay Truck Safety Measure

Washington DC
A bipartisan majority of Democratic and Republican members of the US House of Representatives rejected an amendment to strip funding from the upcoming law that will require electronic logging devices (ELDs) in all interstate commercial trucks. Almost all Democratic members of the House were joined by 67 Republicans in defeating the amendment by a 57 to 40 percent margin.

ELDs will replace the paper log books that truck drivers have used since 1938 to document their on-duty driving time. Paper logs are easily falsified and have been manipulated for decades by some segments of the industry to exceed the driver’s hours-of-service limits. ELDs will provide law enforcement officers with a reliable method to verify whether a driver has operated the vehicle for too many hours.

The deadline for installing ELDs is December 18, 2017. Truck drivers not having an ELD after that date are subject to fines and penalites. After April 1, 2018, any truck driver not having an ELD installed in the truck will be taken out of service.

A broad coalition of trucking associations, law enforcement and consumer and highway safety groups opposed the amendment and applauded its rejection by the US House of Representatives.

The Trucking Alliance was created in 2011 for the purpose of lobbying Congress to mandate ELDs in all commercial trucks. Congress included the ELD mandate in 2012 when it adopted the transportation legislation now commonly referred to as MAP-21.

A detailed roll call vote of the amendment by Congressman Brian Babin of Texas can be found here: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/115-2017/h456