Heavy Duty Trucking, November 2018

SAFETY COMPLIANCE HDT NOVEMBER 2018 34 WWW TRUCKINGINFO COM seeing a lot of vendors come in that may not necessarily be well versed in the U S trucking industry space She also observed that numerous manufacturers had devices fail at the beginning of the year we saw quite a few failures of devices And some of those vendors had to ask for additional time from FMCSA to get their systems fixed Ive talked to quite a few fleets that have had their systems fail as well Its frustrating to drivers to continue to have their system fail when probably they didnt want to have the device in the first place Sandberg added There have been a lot of growing pains in the first months of this process Turning to back office issues Omnitracs Cuthbertson pointed out that timing for audits should be a concern for fleet managers An auditor could come in and ask you several days ahead of time to have ELD driver log data available and send it to them prior to the audit Thats a little different than what may be usual with an AOBRD So you need to be prepared to review your edits and look at how your edits are being done during the audit and any malfunction of devices Realize that if a malfunction happens in a device and it doesnt recover then theres only eight days to have that unit repaired and back into the truck So those are the kind of things you need to worry about with an internal audit Sandberg advised that the last thing you want is to have FMCSA or a state investigator show up to do a compliance review and nobody knows how to pull driver logs and the various reports that they ask for It will make them clearly question your system and your ability to manage that system SAFETY SHORTS Easier rules for diabetics The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued a final rule that makes it easier for individuals with a stable insulin regimen and properly controlled insulintreated diabetes mellitus to become qualified to operate a commercial vehicle in interstate commerce The new rule revises federal regulations that previously required drivers with insulin treated diabetes to obtain an exemption in order to drive in interstate commerce A certified medical examiner is now able to grant insulin dependent diabetics who meet certain criteria a medical certificate for up to 12 months ELDs create more parking stress Drivers are feeling the effects of reduced flexibility from the electronic logging device mandate and are spending more time searching for and worrying about parking says a new report Trucker Path found that 80 of the 5400 surveyed drivers reported that the ELD mandate made it more difficult to find parking Based on usage of the Trucker Path app the company found that compared to last year drivers were looking up parking information more frequently in the evening hours Drivers listed truck parking as the number one cause of stress while on the job followed by ELDs and hours of service Hair testing bill A new bill in Congress includes provisions to create guidelines to use hair to test for illicit drug use A provision within the Senates Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018 directs the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to report to Congress on creating and issuing guidelines for hair testing The Secretary of Health would have 30 days to report on the status of hair testing guidelines eventually outlining a schedule with benchmarks and estimated date for delivery for completed guidelines The bill must be reconciled with the companion House bill passed earlier before it can be signed into law Roadcheck results Junes Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance International Roadcheck inspection blitz once again placed thousands of vehicles and drivers out of service but at lower rates than last year except in hours of service violations which were the focus of the event Out of service rates for vehicles and drivers dropped slightly from 2017 with 216 of vehicles and 39 of drivers being placed out of service Last years rates were 23 and 42 respectively CVSA emphasized hours of service compliance this year and HOS violations were by far the largest contributor to driver out of service conditions at 437 though the rate is a little misleading the group notes because it still represented less than 2 of all inspections When taken as a whole wheels and brake related issues made up the bulk of out of service violations Keller Compliance Care J J Keller announced its Total Compliance Care Service which unites the companys consulting services with its day to day compliance management services As part of this service a J J Keller consultant works onsite at a clients location to evaluate their operations identify compliance gaps recommend corrective actions and drive continuous improvements A team of J J Keller compliance specialists then manages the clients selected driver and vehicle compliance tasks such as driver qualification files and vehicle permitting For our three part series exploring ELD lessons learned so far go to www truckinginfo com ELDLessons BONUS There have been a lot of growing pains in the first months of this process Annette Sandberg TransSafe Consulting