The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) issued a decision on a trucker’s request for exemption from Electronic Logging Device (ELD) regulations due to the expense of the device.
In a Notice to be published in the Federal Register on September 16, the FMCSA denied the request of Arbert Ibraimi on behalf of GTLM Transport Inc. (GTLM) for a one-year exemption from ELD requirements.
Ibraimi told authorities that GTLM is a new business, and that he is an owner-operator with a single CMV. He stated that he had limited funds to purchase an ELD and wanted to use those funds instead to monitor the safety of operations and to incorporate safety management controls into his new trucking operation.
Ibraimi argued that since “the carrier is owner-operated, ‘the operational safety impact will be virtually identical and manageable.'”
The FMCSA received 122 comments on the ELD exemption request — 62 in support, 32 in opposition, and 28 taking no position either for or against granting the exemption.
The FMCSA ultimately decided to deny the request because “GTLM failed to establish that it would likely achieve a level of safety equivalent to, or greater than, the level achieved without the exemption … GTLM did not propose safety countermeasures to compensate for the lower level of safety that paper logs entail. Economic difficulties, such as those that GTLM described, do not justify the granting of an exemption.”