OOIDA Sues FMCSA Over ELD Mandate
A day after the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration released its final rule on the use of electronic logs for all trucks built since 2000, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association filed suit against the agency. On Dec. 11, OOIDA filed a Petition for Review with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit seeking to vacate the rule, which would prevent it from being mandatory.
“This rule has potential to have the single largest, most negative impact on the industry than anything else FMCSA has done,” OOIDA President Jim Johnston told Land Line, the organization’s magazine. “We intend to fight this with all the resources we have available. This regulation is absolutely the most outrageous intrusion into the rights of professional truckers imaginable and will do nothing at all to improve highway safety. In fact, we firmly believe it will do exactly the opposite by placing even more pressure and stress on drivers than they already deal with.”
Johnston also blasted FMCSA on privacy rights.
“While they choose to call it electronic logging systems, in reality it is an electronic monitoring system for law enforcement purposes,” Johnston said. “They can’t even do this to known criminals without a court-issued warrant.”
FMCSA spokesman Duane DeBruyne said as a matter of policy, the agency does not comment on litigation.
This is far from the first time that OOIDA has taken FMSCA to court. In recent years, OOIDA has sued over hours-of-service requirements, the pre-employment screening process and driver inspection reports, among other issues.
ELD RULE ANNOUNCED: Main story with reaction
TELEMATICS IMPACT: Adoption rate predicted to accelerate
READ THE RULE: PDF at fmcsa.dot.gov
ATA SUMMARY: PDF at trucking.org
