It’s a well-known fact that tired or sleepy drivers may cause major accidents on the streets. Long-distance commercial drivers are often those who over-work trying to make more money. To reduce crashes and save driver’s life and health, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration passed a legislation making ELD mandatory for all commercial transport. Since 2017 all carrier companies and truck drivers had to use Electronic Logging Devices, a hardware device, which connected to the engine could count passed miles and control Hours of Service of the drivers. One of the leaders of ELD services is Ezlogz, which provides not only innovative hardware, but also modern and fast software. It is much easier to use than AOBRD (Automatic Onboard Recording Device).
Both these devices intend to replace paper logs, which were used originally. They are more accurate than logbooks and can independently transfer electronic data to regulatory authorities. This helps to avoid not only over-working of the drivers but also prevent driver harassment by carriers, brokers and other commercial transport operators that demand drivers to break safety regulations.
What is the difference between AOBRD and ELD? Why was it decided to change AOBRD into ELD? Was there a real need?
Driver’s fatigue, violation of rules and HOS standards made FMCSA toughen up reports about the time spent by the driver on duty. Paper logs were not as accurate as it was needed and many carriers tried to bypass the rules. So the onboard recording devices were created to control driver’s Records of Duty Status (RODS). They were connected to a vehicle’s motor and recorded the driver's HOS, engine hours, miles and locations. But the AOBRD devices did not meet all the requirements that were specified in the ELD mandate. The commercial transport industry was growing and there was a need to modernize equipment for reporting driver’s HOS.
AOBRD has been grandfathered by the ELD mandate until December 2019. Since that day all carriers and drivers subject to ELD final Rule must use ELDs. They are more restrictive but also more robust and accurate than AOBRDs.
Main Differences Are As Those:
Resuming all the information you can see that the ELD is a new step in the commercial vehicle business, which helps to improve and grow ahead of all the branches of this industry.
