Truck Renting and Leasing Association is Looking To Exempt ELD Requirements.

The Truck Renting and Leasing Association, which is made up of Ryder, Penske and other commercial vehicle renting and leasing companies, is looking for an exemption from the electronic logging device mandate for trucks rented for 30 days or less.

TRALA says the ELD mandate, which has a compliance date of Dec. 18, will “unfairly and adversely affect short-term rental vehicles.”

While most drivers who rent trucks will use ELDs, it says, it is uncertain that the driver’s ELD will communicate accurately with the rental truck’s telematics platform, given the large range of devices and subscription options available.

TRALA adds that it has two main worries – data transfer and data liability. For data transfer, it states that a driver or fleet mandated to use an ELD can rent a truck that has a single operating system, the driver or fleet may use a different one in its trucks, and the data cannot be transferred from the rental to the other truck unless they use the same system. They also add that it would also create a problem for a driver to pull his or her duty status from the last seven days if asked for by law enforcement if the rental ELD is not compatible with the driver’s usual ELD.

With data liability concerns, TRALA says it has suggested rental companies should be able to collect and report ELD data to customers, giving them access to the data, but the final ELD rule doesn’t mandate ELDs to be capable of reading exported data from other providers. Additionally, requiring the leasing companies to safeguard the data for each renter, TRALA states, would increase risk for rental companies.

TRALA added on that short-term rentals which require drivers to report hours-of-service represent an “extremely small percentage of trucks on the road,” and letting drivers of short-term rentals operate with paper logs would allow the drivers to comply with all federal and state hours-of-service regulations.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is looking the opinions and comments of the public on the exemption request. Let us know what you think!