The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has formally rescinded its first, limited rule requiring electronic onboard recorders for carriers with significant hours-of-service compliance violations, according to trade media.
The move was in response to an August 2011 Court of Appeals ruling that vacated the rule published in April 2010.
That rule, which would have gone into effect June 1, 2012, would have required carriers with an HOS violation rate of 10 percent or more to install EOBRs on its trucks.
However, an owner-operator group filed a petition to stop the rule on the basis that EOBRs could be uses to “harass” drivers and the court rule din its favour.
However, the move does not affect the FMCSA’s plans to publish a separate, “broader” rule mandating that all large trucks required to keep a logbook be equipped with EOBRs. The agency plans to address the court’s concerns in that new rulemaking.
There is also a parallel effort to include an EOBR requirement in the transportation bill that the House and Senate is currently trying to work on.
