A rulemaking ordered under the Obama administration will consider whether all trucks should be outfitted with a unique ID, overhauling the way trucks are inspected.
The advanced notice of proposed rulemaking is to be published in the Federal Register on Friday. It is in response to a request in February 2015 by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance to reconsider a similar request by CVSA that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration denied in 2013.
In November 2015 under FMCSA Administrator Scott Darling, the agency granted CVSA’s reconsideration petition and ordered a rulemaking after CVSA provided additional cost/benefit information, but the rule was never issued.
The current proposal, on which the public will have 60 days to comment, will consider requiring every commercial motor vehicle (CMV) to be equipped with electronic ID technology “capable of wirelessly communicating a unique ID number when queried by a Federal or State motor carrier safety enforcement personnel,” according to FMCSA.
“FMCSA is therefore soliciting further information regarding various aspects of electronic identification including the best possible technical and operational concepts along with associated costs, benefits, security, vulnerability, privacy and other relevant deployment and operational implications.”
Technology to ‘revolutionize’ roadside inspection?
FMCSA acknowledges in its petition that, for the purpose of roadside inspections, U.S. Department of Transportation number readers are capable of reading those numbers in real time at highway speeds, and license plate reader systems can identify and match plates with existing registration data.
Those devices, however, are not always accurate, which “may result in compliant carriers being stopped for roadside inspections and, conversely, non-compliant or high-risk carriers being excluded from roadside inspections,” according to the agency.
“Unnecessary inspections on otherwise compliant carriers leave less time for enforcement personnel to identify and conduct inspections of higher-risk carriers, and they also diminish the value of the advance e-screening for compliant carriers. Lack of inspections on non-compliant higher risk carriers may result in adverse safety events.”
CVSA states in its petition that requiring a unique electronic ID fitted to every truck “would revolutionize the way commercial motor vehicle roadside monitoring, inspection and enforcement are conducted. It would improve the effectiveness of enforcement programs while reducing costs, for both enforcement and industry, all while improving safety.” The technology also would have the potential to expand remote vehicle inspections (see CVSA video, below).
FMCSA’s petition includes a list of questions for public response, including whether trailers should also be required to have an electronic ID, if a driver’s ELD could be used to collect and transmit the electronic ID data, and if there are privacy, health or coercion concerns the agency should consider.
CVSA contends there would be no “credible” privacy concerns for carriers and drivers.
In a similar petition submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2018 asking NHTSA to require all trucks be manufactured at the outset with universal electronic ID, CVSA said a unique ID “would transmit only information that is already required to be displayed or made available by regulation. All this requirement would do is change how that information is presented to the enforcement community.”
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Wyatt Smithson
We need more parking and less regulations. need safe parking. More regulations haven’t made anyone or and driver safer. things were safer years ago. why is that. “Let’s add more in the name of safety” HA all BS. just another political move to generate money. it’s always about money.
David Beck
looking for more old trucks to restore this change will make the old trucks more valuable everyone will want to have older truck to not have to Deal with this and emissions. life on the road is hard enough. technology is only making it worse. if this goes through we need all law enforcement and dot vehicles to have GPS tags on at all times linked to app on every truckers phone to show there location. fare is fare.
TODD Reeves
all them old trucks will be taken off the road in 3 years!! NATION WIDE!!
Anibal Matos
Totally useless idea. Just another cost for truckers to waste money on. Our original eld was outdated then came the elimination of 3g so then another eld had to be purchased to stay compliant. Every time those have an issue we go back to paper logs anyway. It’s all political bs. Nothing at all to do w safety. It actually makes you drive when you are tired because you have to stay within those parameters. This product is basically just to make the guys in the office a little less work. Really. I drive an older truck so my life is less complicated. Yet you guys are insisting that it become computerized in one way or another. Nobody is paying me back for the over 30k in repairs that I had on my 14. meanwhile my 94 has been pretty much trouble free. We are already over-regulated. Stop it already. Find another industry to torment.
Scott
you guys want your s*** when you need it delivered to the stores delivered to people things picked up and brought to you but yet you want to regulate the s*** out of us heal these are enough regulations the more you add the more people don’t want to do this job the more you’re going to have issues getting things to your stores why don’t you just let truckers be truckers you let crackheads be crackheads you let potheads be potheads let truckers be truckers
A R
all over the roads it’s dangerous people driving not just the commercial trucks business so far the ELD are making trucking business so much harder for one moment think we are people not machines or computer so the most common actually accident are happening for texting and driving
Marc Riffle
elogs log books and this card thing is bad for trucking it’s time the fmcsa is fired removed they are destroying a safe trucking world making it unsafe
Marco Salo
they are trying to put everything on the cloud so they can control your lives 100%
this total control through technology will never end!
the autonomous trucks are coming anyway, prepare for a carrer change.
they want total control!
this is the future!
if you think Putin was/is bad just wait for these good old clowns to reign you in!
Trucker P
Pass this law and alot of drivers will quit. Stop pushing people out of jobs. Elds are unnecessary as well… Get the US government together first then try and make changes. Your penalizing good drivers. Fools