The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has removed two electronic recording devices from its list of approved ELDs.
On Thursday, August 15, the FMCSA announced that Blue Star ELD and Reliable ELD were added to the list of revoked devices.
According to the agency, the devices were removed from the list of approved devices because they did not meet the minimum requirements of 49 CFR Part 395, Subpart B, Appendix A, which requires that “an ELD without a printer must be designed so that the display can be reasonably viewed by an authorized security officer without the need for the officer to enter the commercial motor vehicle.”
Carriers using either of the two revoked ELDs have until October 14 to replace the devices with a compliant device. If they do not do so by the deadline, a “no record of service” status will be issued and the carriers will be taken out of service.
In the meantime, FMCSA said carriers should “revert to using paper logs or logging software” to record their hours of service data. The agency added that prior to the deadline, “safety officials are encouraged not to prosecute drivers using these revoked ELDs” for either not using a registered device or not having proof of hours of service.
There are currently 982 devices on the Registered ELDs list. All of them are certified by the manufacturer as compliant with federal regulations. The agency does not endorse any of the devices on the Registered Devices List.
According to the FMCSA, revoked ELDs can be added back to the approved device list if “the ELD provider corrects any identified deficiencies.”
In fact, Blue Star ELD itself was placed back on the approved list in May, one day after it was placed on the revoked list, for the same reason the device was revoked this week.
Although vendors have the opportunity to correct any deficiencies, the agency stated that it “strongly recommends that carriers take the actions listed above now to avoid compliance issues if the deficiencies are not corrected by ELD vendors.”
In total, the FMCSA has placed 13 devices on the revoked list this year for the same reason. In February, the agency removed five ELDs from the approved list, and two more were revoked in May. Of those, the Blue Star ELD was the only device placed back on the approved list, with its status now revoked.
In addition to self-certification, the agency also allows manufacturers to revoke non-compliant devices themselves. There are currently 219 ELDs on the revocation list. Of these, only 30 were added by the FMCSA, the remaining 189 devices have the status “self-revoked”.
The lack of oversight in the certification and revocation of ELDs has caused problems for carriers in complying with the regulation.
In November 2022, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association called on the agency to implement a comprehensive certification process for ELDs, arguing that it was “abundantly clear” that the current self-certification process was doing a “disservice” to motor carriers.
“Introducing a comprehensive certification process would likely result in fewer non-compliant devices being listed,” the association said. “This would reduce costs for carriers who may currently have to purchase several self-certified devices before finding one they are confident is compliant.” LL
