FMCSA Cuts Paperwork Needed for Verification of Driver Logs

This story appears in the June 14 print edition of Transport Topics.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has proposed reducing the amount of evidence fleets must maintain in order to verify their drivers’ hours-of-service logbooks.

Robert Digges, chief counsel for American Trucking Associations, told Transport Topics that the federation was likely to drop a lawsuit it had filed in January, hoping to force FMCSA to publish a final rule spelling out what documents need to be retained.

But Digges added, “If they don’t, and they leave some of the things that don’t make any sense — that sort of changes the story.”

In a notice posted on its website June 4, the agency said it “recognizes that certain documents . . . are not regularly used by enforcement staff to verify the accuracy” of HOS logs and thus “will not require motor carriers to maintain and produce” them.

Among the records carriers no longer will have to keep are:

• Driver call-in records.

• International Registration Plan receipts.

• International Fuel Tax Agreement receipts.

• Trip permits.

• Cash advance receipts.

• Driver fax reports.

The agency said fleets that use electronic communications equipment also no longer will have to maintain:

• Gate-record receipts.

• Weigh/scale tickets.

• Port-of-entry receipts.

• Delivery receipts.

• Toll receipts.

• Agricultural inspection reports.

• Damage reports.

• Examination reports.

• Traffic citations.

• Oversize/overweight reports and citations.

• Carrier pros.

• Credit card receipts.

• Border crossing reports.

• Customs declarations.

• Telephone bills.

The guidance — which the agency will finalize after taking comments through July 9 — in addition to spelling out a number of documents that fleets will no longer need to keep, said, “Motor carriers that use electronic mobile communications/tracking technology, whether or not such technology is qualifying technology under this policy, must continue to retain data generated by that system in the ordinary course of business.”

However, while those fleets are not required to put those data into a particular format, FMCSA said, they “must retain such reports or communications and provide them to investigators upon demand.”

Digges said ATA is most concerned about those retention requirements.

“The one part that really bothers us is that, if you are a motor carrier and you have electronic data that doesn’t meet their criteria and otherwise therefore relieve you of the greater burden of document retention, you still have to retain it in case they want to use it,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

In January, ATA sued FMCSA, seeking a final rule about what documents fleets need to retain to verify their drivers’ logbooks (1-25, p. 4; click here for previous story).

In a statement, FMCSA spokeswoman Candice Tolliver told TT that the agency was working on the guidance before ATA’s petition, a position Digges said was “arguably . . . accurate.”

“They’ve been telling us for some time that they intended to do something. Whether they ever would have gotten around to it is another matter,” Digges said.

ATA agreed to put its suit on hold, Digges said, pending issuance of the guidance, and now will review the guidance and submit comments to FMCSA on it.

“We’ll wait and see what the final product looks like and then decide from there whether to continue the litigation,” he said.

At a June 9 FMCSA advisory committee meeting, Administrator Anne Ferro said the agency is on track to publish a proposed rule on supporting documents and electronic onboard recorders.

A Department of Transportation report on significant rules said the rule was on pace to go to the Federal Register in late December.

“Strengthening commercial vehicle safety through hours-of-service compliance by carriers and drivers is a top priority for [FMCSA],” Tolliver said.