Trackers on truckers?
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association files formal comments to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on a frequent basis.
In doing, the Association relays the thoughts or concerns of truck drivers about a particular proposal. This is typically done with a straightforward approach.
However, when it came to FMCSA’s proposal regarding a potential mandate of electronic IDs on commercial motor vehicles, OOIDA turned to a famous science fiction novel to make its point.
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13,” OOIDA wrote to open its comments, citing the famous line from George Orwell’s “1984.”
The departure from OOIDA’s typical approach was intended to emphasize OOIDA’s disapproval of any attempts to place trackers on truckers and further create a “Big Brother” culture in the industry.
“OOIDA does not support the erosion of privacy, nor the destruction of identity through surveillance and control,” the Association wrote. “To ask for more surveillance and control in the name of safety on our highways is to venture into what George Orwell would call ‘doublespeak.’ The term ‘Big Brother’ has come to signify government control of and intrusion into truckers’ individual lives.”
In September, FMCSA issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking that considers requiring all commercial motor vehicles operating in interstate commerce to possess a unique electronic identifier.
The advance notice falls short of formally calling for the mandate. However, it does show that the agency is at least considering the petition from the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.
The group claims the mandate would improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the roadside inspection program by allowing officers to focus their efforts on high-risk carriers and drivers.
In response to the petition, FMCSA asked the public to comment in order to figure out whether or not it wants to move forward with a notice of proposed rulemaking.
OOIDA stated that truck drivers consider it another burdensome regulation with no proven safety benefits that will only lead to a greater invasion of privacy.
“OOIDA and our members oppose this proposal in the strongest possible terms,” the Association wrote in formal comments to FMCSA. “Our members have been extremely clear that this concept is an unwarranted intrusion into their privacy, as well as an overly costly and burdensome requirement that does nothing to improve their efficiency or safety.”
Public response
The comment period, which ended on Nov. 22, 2022, garnered more than 2,000 comments, according to the Regulations.gov website.
A significant number of the comments came from drivers who expressed privacy concerns.
“I am a 40-year driver,” Mark Lumm wrote. “I think this is another unnecessary invasion of privacy that won’t change anything. They already scan and read and invade our privacy like no other group or workforce. We are third-class citizens. Truckers are the only group that has multimillion-dollar facilities all over the nation to inspect your vehicle and invade your privacy – as if no other vehicles or drivers are dangerous and cause accidents. It is just another way to burden an industry that is overburdened. I believe this is totally unnecessary and probably unconstitutional.”
Truck driver Greg Evans also called the potential requirement unnecessary.
“I think that this is a no-go,” he wrote. “The (electronic logging device) already tracks everything that DOT needs to know. They can have you send in your last seven days of logs whenever you’re pulled for an inspection within seconds of requesting them. What’s really the endgame here?”
Bob Smith said the mandate would drive even more truckers out of the industry.
“We are already more regulated than any other industry,” he wrote. “Regulated to the point most of us seasoned drivers have already quit. We are treated like felons with an ankle monitor already. We have to pee in a jar without warning (note: I have never tested positive for anything).
“We have cameras and electronic GPS tracking everything we do. When does all this become invasion of privacy? And what effect has all this technology had on safety? Accidents involving commercial motor vehicles have increased, not declined. You want to know why? All the seasoned truck drivers have quit … If I had prepared properly for retirement, I would have already quit.”
Safety concerns
OOIDA contends that an electronic ID mandate would negatively affect highway safety if enforcement officers begin prioritizing roadside inspections based on potentially unreliable data instead of observable safety hazards.
“The CVSA petition contends a unique electronic identifier mandate would allow their members to better focus their enforcement efforts on high-risk carriers,” the Association wrote. “OOIDA believes the systems currently used to determine high-risk carriers are critically flawed, such as the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program, diminishing any perceived safety benefits of the proposal.”
OOIDA noted that fatal crashes have increased since the start of the CSA program.
“In the five years following CSA’s introduction, there was a 20% increase in fatal crashes and a 55% increase in crashes that resulted in injuries,” OOIDA wrote. “Furthermore, many truckers have expressed frustration that CVSA member agencies fail to report clean inspections, which was promised when CSA was established, further eroding confidence in the system and its role in identifying high-risk carriers.”
The National Association of Chemical Distributors said the purported benefits of the mandate wouldn’t outweigh the risks.
“NACD is concerned that adding a regulation to require electronic IDs poses the risk of burdening the trucking industry, creating security vulnerabilities, and exacerbating supply chain issues,” the group wrote. “Adopting this system would create more opportunities for sensitive information to be taken advantage of while also requiring businesses to adopt new administrative processes. Furthermore, there has not been any data to suggest that the addition of this kind of regulation would increase safety or inspection programs.”
Privacy concerns
OOIDA and individual truck drivers pointed to privacy concerns before the introduction of the electronic logging device. Those concerns were largely ignored, but the FBI issued a bulletin in 2020 that pointed to cybersecurity problems regarding ELDs.
An electronic ID mandate would only make the problem worse, OOIDA said.
“Perhaps the most concerning aspect of this proposal is FMCSA’s failure to address the shortcomings and security risks associated with previous technology-based requirements, including the ELD mandate,” OOIDA wrote. “There is insufficient recognition of the concerns motor carriers and drivers have continuously expressed about privacy and data security, and there are no indications FMCSA has taken any meaningful steps to alleviate these concerns. Barreling forward with a new mandate involving the transmission of sensitive information only intensifies concerns involving identity theft, cargo theft, security threats and more.”
Citing Fourth Amendment concerns, OOIDA said that the mandate would expand upon the warrantless search activities of both the federal government and its state partners.
“Any proposed inspection scheme must comply with the applicable federal and state administrative search standards,” the Association wrote. “The agency’s proposal demonstrates that there remains much work to be done to ensure that any new inspection/identification scheme protects individual privacy rights in accordance with the Constitution. Many of the questions asked by the agency reveal that it is far from a foregone conclusion that warrantless unique electronic identifier searches can be justified under the Constitution.”
Call to abandon proposal
Based on the concerns, OOIDA told the agency that it should not proceed with any rulemaking to require electronic IDs on trucks.
“We encourage FMCSA to immediately abandon this proposal,” OOIDA wrote. “We plan to vigorously oppose any subsequent steps this agency takes to mandate the use of unique electronic identifiers.”
‘Data Driven’
OOIDA is not alone when it comes to concerns over intrusion into the lives of truck drivers.
“Data Driven,” a new book authored by Karen Levy, examines how digital surveillance is affecting our nation’s truck drivers.
Levy, an assistant professor in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University, recently spoke with Land Line Media’s Scott Thompson about the book and the increased use of workplace surveillance in trucking.
The inspiration for the book was sparked by the trucking industry’s mandated transition from paper logs to ELDs to track a driver’s hours of service. Levy also said that the technological intrusions into the lives of truckers could serve as an indication of what’s coming for the general public.
Ironically, Levy said many truck drivers told her that they entered the profession because they liked the idea of being on their own and not having anyone looking over their shoulder while they do their job. Now, many truckers live in a world where they are required to use driver-facing cameras, ELDs and equipment that decides how fast they can go and when the brakes are applied.
“They wanted to do their work safely and professionally, but they wanted to do it in ways where they weren’t being treated like a child or like a criminal – not trusted to know their own body or know their own limitations,” Levy said. “One of the reasons this technology is so interesting to me is that it just flies in the face of this professional identity and culture in trucking that has been built for decades. So it’s been interesting to understand the technology legally … but also culturally – what it means to truckers to be joined in the cab by this technology that is tracking some pretty intimate information about their body and their behavior in ways that are so counter to what the culture of the industry has looked like for such a long time.”
The ELD mandate didn’t prompt any short-term safety benefits. Full enforcement of ELDs began in 2018. Since 2017, fatality crashes have risen by 14.5%.
“There isn’t even that demonstrated safety benefit from ELDs,” Levy said. “There have been rigorous studies showing that truck crashes have gone up since the ELD mandate and that speeding has gone up. People have to compensate for the rigidity of the technological enforcement by looking for other ways to make up time. And that is all going on in the absence of regulations for things like detention time, which are the real drivers of fatigue in the industry.”
She added that one of the problems with the increased use of technology is that it often takes a Band-Aid approach rather than addressing the real problems.
“The professed reason for using this technology is safety, but if you look at where the real safety problems are in the industry … those aren’t the things that are being regulated,” Levy said. “We’re regulating down. We’re not regulating the folks who really have the power to make some systemic changes in the industry. We’re not changing how drivers are paid. We’re not really dealing with anything involving the root causes of fatigue in the industry.” LL