‘No soft enforcement’ for drivers who still have an AOBRD, CVSA warns

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance has a warning for drivers who are still using an AOBRD to record their hours of service after Monday, Dec. 16. The group says those drivers will be placed out-of-service for violating federal regulations.

When the ELD mandate went into effect in December 2017, motor carriers using AOBRDs before the final rule’s effective date were grandfathered in for two years. As of Dec. 16, motor carriers who were using an AOBRD must have a regulation-compliant ELD.

In a news release issued earlier this week, CVSA stated that all motor carriers must have “a fully operational ELD installed” by Tuesday, Dec. 17.

CVSA’s news release also states that FMCSA has no plans to offer extensions or exceptions made to the ELD rule deadline. The release states that CVSA inspectors will begin fully enforcing the ELD rule on Dec. 17, and “there will be no ‘soft enforcement’ grace period.”

“If a commercial motor vehicle driver is required to have an ELD and the vehicle is not equipped with a registered compliant ELD, the driver is considered to have no record of duty status,” CVSA’s news release states. “That also applies to a driver still using an automatic onboard recording device after the AOBRD to ELD transition deadline of Dec. 17, 2019.”

According to the North American Standard Out-of-Service Criteria, a property-carrying driver who does not have a record of duty status in his or her possession when one is required will be declared out of service for 10 hours and a passenger-carrying driver without a record of duty status when one is required will be placed out of service for eight hours.

While AOBRDs will no longer be allowed in lieu of ELDs, the rule does not affect the exemption for trucks with engines predating the 2000s. Those trucks will still not be required to install an ELD or an AOBRD.

Associate Editor Mark Schremmer contributed to this report.