Hours of Service Violations in the ELD Mandate Era

The Electronic Logging Device (ELD) Mandate was officially put into place on April 1, 2018. It was at this point that commercial motor vehicle drivers would be placed out of service if their vehicle was not equipped with an ELD. The ELD Mandate was put into place in order to simplify the tracking of a driver’s Hours of Service (HOS) and simplify the enforcement of the HOS rules.

Since the ELD Mandate, some things have changed in terms of hours of service. Certain violations are no longer seen as often and other violations are now easier to get caught for. With a lot happening since the implementation of the ELD Mandate, let’s take a look at how hours of service violations have changed in the ELD Mandate Era.

What hours of service violations are still in effect?

Here is a list of the HOS violations that are very much still in effect with the ELD Mandate:

Going over the 14-hour limit

• Truck drivers have 14 hours after coming off duty to complete their driving for the day.

Going over the 11-hour driving limit

• Within the 14-hour limit, truck drivers are only allowed to drive for 11 hours within that time frame.

Not taking a 30-minute break

• Also within the 14-hour limit , a driver must take a 30-minute break before 8 hours of driving time has passed since the end of their last off-duty or sleeper-berth period of at least 30 minutes.

Going under the 10 hours off duty

• Once a driver goes off duty, they must stay off duty for at least 10 consecutive hours in order to reset their 14 hour clock.

• There is flexibility with this rule by using the 8/2 or 7/3 sleeper-berth split. Learn more about the rules by clicking on the links.

Going over the 60/70 limit

• Truck drivers can only be on duty for 60 hours in a 7 day period or 70 hours in an 8 day period.

Prior to the ELD Mandate, all of these HOS rules had to be tracked on paper logs. This made it hard for drivers to accurately keep track of all of them. Drivers also had the ability to falsify their on-duty and off-duty time which made it hard to enforce. ELDs make it really easy to accurately track all of these HOS rules and violations.

What hours of service violations are no longer as common?

Even though the ELD Mandate didn’t get rid of any HOS violations, these specific violations were a lot more common when hours were kept on paper logs.

Form & Manner Violations

• When there were paper logs, form & manner violations were one of the most common violations. Now that there are ELDs, there is less information that a driver has to put in manually. This means there is a smaller possibility of a driver getting caught for a form and manner violation because almost everything is being tracked and inputted automatically.

Falsification of Records

• Because hours of service data is being tracked by an electronic device, it is very hard to falsify your records. It used to be possible for a driver to log whatever hours they wanted when that information was being kept on paper logs. Now, all of this information is being tracked automatically as you drive which makes it hard to falsify.

Missing Logs Violations

• Missing logs violations used to be common because there was a lot of paper that needed to be kept track of. ELDs have significantly reduced the chance of losing a paper log. All of the HOS logs are now just kept organized within the ELD which means if you don’t lose or destroy the ELD, you shouldn’t lose those logs.

What are the penalties for violating the hours of service rules?

Violating HOS rules can lead to a variety of penalties for both the driver and the carrier. If a driver is caught over their HOS, they may be placed out of service until the driver has spent enough time off duty in order to be back in compliance. Depending on the severity, the driver could also be assessed fines by both state and local law enforcement officials.