electronic logging device

You've Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All
by Adrian Hon
Published 14 Sep 2022

“Welcome to the ELD Home Page,” ELD | Electronic Logging Devices, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, United States Department of Transportation, accessed November 28, 2021, https://eld.fmcsa.dot.gov. 81. Alex Scott, Andrew Balthrop, and Jason Miller, “Did the Electronic Logging Device Mandate Reduce Accidents?” SSRN, January 24, 2019, http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3314308. 82. Truckerman19, “LOG BOOK,” SCS Software message board, SCS Software, September 11, 2018, https://forum.scssoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=260120. 83. Rookie-31st, “Electronic Logging Device,” American Truck Simulator General Discussions, American Truck Simulator, STEAM, Valve Corporation, June 11, 2018, https://steamcommunity.com/app/270880/discussions/0/1697175413687762277/?

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As with all self-reporting, some drivers fudged their numbers.62 Sometimes the reasons were fairly innocent, like making up for lost time after squeezing in a nap. At other times, drivers have falsified their hours in a rush to meet a deadline after taking on one too many loads. Starting from the 1980s, the US government began exploring the possibility of moving to electronic logging devices (ELDs) that would replace drivers’ paper logbooks with an automated, unforgeable system, in order to improve compliance with hours of service and thus increase road safety.63 These efforts repeatedly failed until 2012, when Congress passed the MAP-21 Act.64 MAP-21 required the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to develop a rule that would mandate ELDs for all commercial drivers.

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“MAP-21—Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act,” Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, United States Department of Transportation, updated February 18, 2016, www.fmcsa.dot.gov/mission/policy/map-21-moving-ahead-progress-21st-century-act. 65. “ELD Brochure—English Version,” Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, United States Department of Transportation, updated October 31, 2017, www.fmcsa.dot.gov/hours-service/elds/eld-brochure-english-version. 66. “Registered ELDs,” ELD | Electronic Logging Devices, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, United States Department of Transportation, accessed November 28, 2021, https://eld.fmcsa.dot.gov/List. 67. “Research,” Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, accessed November 28, 2021, www.ooida.com/foundation/research. 68. Eric Miller, “New FMCSA Administrator Ray Martinez Grilled by Angry Drivers in Listening Session,” Transport Topics, March 23, 2018, www.ttnews.com/articles/new-fmcsa-administrator-ray-martinez-grilled-angry-drivers-listening-session; “OOIDA Foundation ELDs,” Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, accessed November 28, 2021, www.ooida.com/foundation/eld. 69.

Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door -- Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy
by Christopher Mims
Published 13 Sep 2021

In Robert’s truck, he has two smartphones, one personal and one for work; a laptop on which he communicates with his boss and shippers; an Xbox One and a PlayStation 4 for blowing off steam at the end of his long days; a trucker-grade Garmin GPS; a Canon printer/scanner for the paper documents he has to both produce and digitize for shippers and his dispatcher; a tablet he uses as a dashboard camera, a backup dashboard camera because in an accident you can never have too much evidence, and a third camera provided by his employer; a federally mandated electronic logging device with a tablet-based interface, which is connected directly to the innards of his truck and tracks his hours on the road; an E-Z Pass and a weigh station pass; a CB radio; and a rat’s nest of chargers and charging cables. Many of these devices are but end points for cloud-based services, from email to route-planning software and apps designed specifically to help truckers find places to fuel up, eat, and sleep.

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It was easy to fake paper logs and accepted across the industry that drivers would lie on their reports, driving longer than the eleven hours they’re allowed in a day, or spending more than fourteen hours on the clock total. Often, they accrued those extra hours during long loading or unloading times, when they might nap in their sleeper cabin. All that started to change in December 2015, when laws mandating use of electronic logging devices came into effect. They were the result of thirty years of political and legal wrangling between insurers, large fleet operators, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, judges, and independent truckers. The resulting rules were a compromise no one was completely happy with, and the rules continue to be revised as their impact on truckers and safety becomes apparent.

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By the end of the night, I’m ready to collapse into a real bed, but he’s still going strong, still chatting, still filling the silences with stories and asides, an unceasing chronicle of the ways truck drivers are pinched between ever-tighter regulation of their time and state and local law enforcement who seem eager to give them tickets just for being where everyone who depends on them—that is, all of us—needs them to be. Chapter 12 How “Hitler’s Highway” Became America’s Circulatory System Just before the electronic logging device of the hypothetical driver hauling our USB charger registers a violation of the rule limiting him to eleven hours of driving time in a single day, he pulls into the Loco Travel Plaza in Fruita, Colorado. Traveling 719 miles while maintaining an average speed of sixty-five miles an hour is a miracle of one of the most important but least appreciated technologies in the entire overland supply chain: roads.

Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
by Cathy O'Neil
Published 5 Sep 2016

The underlying idea was that drivers should be judged by their records—their number of speeding tickets, or whether they’ve been in an accident—and not by their consumer patterns or those of their friends or neighbors. Yet in the age of Big Data, urging insurers to judge us by how we drive means something entirely new. Insurance companies now have manifold ways to study drivers’ behavior in exquisite detail. For a preview, look no further than the trucking industry. These days, many trucks carry an electronic logging device that registers every turn, every acceleration, every time they touch the brakes. And in 2015, Swift Transportation, the nation’s largest trucking company, started to install cameras pointed in two directions, one toward the road ahead, the other at the driver’s face. The stated goal of this surveillance is to reduce accidents.