Heavy Duty Trucking, October 2019

SAFETY COMPLIANCE HDT OCTOBER 2019 36 WWW TRUCKINGINFO COM an ELD that complies with all the current U S rules says Adime Bonsi a researcher at FPInnovations parent company of the PIT Group With more than 450 self certified ELD vendors currently registered on the FMCSA website the burden of choice is on U S fleets to select compliant ELDs In Canada ELD certification will be done by an accredited independent organization Certified ELDs will be listed on Transport Canadas website and carriers can choose a supplier from the list of certified vendors he adds Transport Canada has not yet named the parties that will be accredited for certification but they must meet certain criteria when applying for the job including being ISO 17065 compliant Vendors will have to pay to have their devices certified There will be no grandfather period for existing devices AOBRD or ELD when the regulation kicks in starting June 2021 That worries Mike Millian head of the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada The PMTC is in agreement with the two year compliance date however we do have concerns with the removal of the grandfather clause that was posted in the first version of the proposed rule he says The removal of the grandfather clause may actually place fleets who implemented devices years prior to a mandate in a worse position than those who did nothing These fleets will have to work with their suppliers and hope that the device they purchased can be updated to be third party certified or replaced with new devices As a certifying body has yet to be determined they may have to wait to find out the status of their device which reduces their lead time to plan a transition if their current device is not certified Other differences Use During a Malfunction Canadian drivers may use paper daily logs for a maximum of 14 days or until they return to the home terminal from the currently planned trip if the trip takes longer than 14 days In the U S the drivers hours of service can be recorded on a paper log for a maximum of eight days after the malfunction Summary of Driver Hours Canadian ELDs are required to display available driver hours but on the current shift and in the 7 or 14 day recap This will become complicated when some of the special provisions such as the off duty deferral are considered Additional provisions unique to Canada such as the split sleeper provision and driving north of the 60th parallel also have to be built into the device in order to comply with the Canadian rules and to be deemed compliant in Canada The ticking clock The timeline for the roll out of the Canadian rule leaves just 24 months from enactment to implementation including about 12 months until we see the list of certified devices appear on the Transport Canada website The application process for accreditation of certifying bodies is not fully defined yet says Bonsi The Transport Canada literature suggests the accreditation and certification process will take about a year PIT Group has been providing independent verification services to U S vendors for the past few years Our experience so far suggests it takes about three to six weeks to thoroughly test and verify that a device is compliant with FMCSAs technical specifications Vendors will have about a year to integrate the Canadian HOS rules into their devices before they are submitted for certification That leaves the elapsed time between submission and approval assuming all goes well and carrier adoption at less than 12 months In other words some carriers could face some uncertainty over whether their devices will be approved in Canada by the June 2021 deadline All existing ELDs and AOBRDs that can be updated to ELD status will have to be submitted for certification in Canada stresses Bouchard Self certification will not apply in Canada and Canadian enforcement officials will verify that each ELD they encounter is on the certified list If not it will be in violation And dont lose sight of the fact that changes have been proposed to the U S HOS rules ELD vendors will probably have their hands full supplying updates and revisions to the U S software once the new rules are officially adopted Carriers operating in Canada should soon seek assurances from their ELD suppliers that they intend to meet the Canadian compliance date of June 2021 every kingdeserves a thronENew premiumwide seat options volvotrucks us