Onboard Recorders Improve Driver Morale, Survey Finds
Almost 20 percent say recorders improve driver retention, and 62 percent say they have no impact on driver retention.
Oliver B.Patton
Washington Editor
Most carriers do not use electronic onboard recorders to track driver hours. They claim they can't justify the expense and do not see a safety return – and in any case, they don't want to invest in a device before the government actually requires one and spells out how it should work.
But most of the carriers that do use recorders say the devices improve driver morale and company productivity, and either improve or have no impact on driver retention.
This finding, from a survey by the American Transportation Research Institute, challenges the widely held view that drivers will resist the use of recorders. The survey also found that large and medium fleets believe they can afford recorders, but small carriers and owner-operators believe they cannot accept the cost of even the least expensive devices.
The institute conducted the survey in anticipation of a federal proposal that may set the stage for mandatory recorders for some, or all, carriers. The proposal by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is overdue and expected any day.
"Some form of EOBR mandate is a real possibility," the institute said.
The safety agency will not discuss contents of the proposal before it is published. Administrator John Hill did say that the agency has done a considerable amount of research and, "We have framed what we think is a good starting point."
Doug Duncan, chairman of the institute and president of FedEx Freight, said the research provides statistical information about recorders from fleets that actually use them. "Clearly there are still issues that must be resolved prior to any mandate, but we now have a blueprint for resolving those issues."
It is reasonable to guess that in its proposal, FMCSA will be looking for more information, because the public record on recorders makes one thing clear: Many questions remain unanswered.
ATRI, which is the research arm of the American Trucking Associations, conducted a literature review, analyzed comments submitted to the FMCSA in response to the current proposal, surveyed carriers that use recorders and carriers that do not, surveyed recorder manufacturers and followed up with interviews. It learned that not enough is known about how a recorder requirement should be applied, how the devices themselves should be configured or how enforcement would work.
Key Findings:
• More than three-quarters of the carriers that use recorders say the devices improve driver morale and company productivity. Almost 20 percent say recorders improve driver retention, and 62 percent say they have no impact on driver retention. Only 4 percent said recorders worsen driver morale, and 9 percent said they worsen productivity.
• Carriers that use recorders, and those that do not, view the devices as tools for compliance with the hours of service rules, rather than a component of a safety management system. Carriers see improved compliance as a potential benefit. They also believe that recorders would level the competitive playing field by making it more difficult to drive excess hours – also a benefit.
• Carriers believe that a recorder requirement should be flexible enough to accommodate different types of industry operations, but standard within a given sector.
• Carriers and vendors are concerned about a lack of recorder standards and uniform practices – particularly with respect to data privacy.
• A point of great concern to carriers and enforcement agencies is how to standardize recorder enforcement and hours of service compliance.
The institute recommends that tax credits or financial assistance be made available to small carriers and owner-operators to offset the cost of recorders. It also recommends that carriers, suppliers and the FMCSA cooperate to design and test a system that meets industry needs for cost, functionality, maintenance, technical standards and data privacy. Also, technical and functional standards should be included in the final rule, and the rule should require only the minimum information to confirm driver identity and hours of service status – any other data should be available only to the carrier.
ATRI's findings and recommendations generally echo the position ATA already has taken on recorders. The association has indicated that it is willing to go along with a recorder requirement, provided that the safety agency starts with a pilot project to prove that recorders will improve safety, and that the requirement meets these conditions:
• Recorder systems should be based on the minimal specifications necessary to accurately record and report the information.
• Carriers should have legal protections regarding control, ownership and admissibility of the data in court. Also, the driver should have privacy rights.
• Drivers will be responsible for operating the recorder in compliance with the rule.
• Any rule must take the diversity of the industry into account, and continue existing exemptions.
• Carriers using recorders should not have to keep supporting documents for HOS compliance.
• Any recorder requirement should apply simultaneously to all vehicles in the segments that are covered by the rule. It should avoid any implementation inequities.
• Any regulation that provides incentives should allow for "reasonable and defensible" flexibility in the HOS rules.
• There should be tax incentives for adopting recorders.
The owner-operator segment of the industry is not likely to be as accepting. "EOBRs are not the answer," said Tom Weakley, director of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association Foundation, in a recent conference call with industry analyst John Larkin of Stifel Nicolaus. "You're going to see OOIDA challenge it. We know it's coming."
In the same interview, David Owen, president of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies, said, "Well, it's not coming because it's the right thing to do. It's just because it's a trade-off that the industry has been forced to get some sensibility in the hours of service.
"The problem with hours of service and the box is there's no flexibility in them. I mean, there's no common sense judgment left to the driver, who's ultimately responsible for his own safety and the truck and the load. Are you going to tell me that if you were 48 miles from home that you'd park on the side of the road and spend the weekend there rather than going on home? I don't think so."
Larkin believes recorders will eventually be required and that they will impact the transportation marketplace: They will limit capacity by making it harder for carriers to skirt the hours of service rules.
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