Also this week, the court granted the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association extra time to file its next response brief in the lawsuit. OOIDA filed the original lawsuit against the ELD mandate in March, arguing the rule violates truckers’ 4th Amendment rights and will not make highways safer. OOIDA filed the suit hoping the court will strike down the mandate prior to its December 2017 effective date.
The American Trucking Associations, who’s long supported a mandate to require ELDs, filed an amicus brief June 22 with the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, the court overseeing the ELD litigation.
ATA in its brief argues the ELD rule meets the standards set by Congress for such a rule and will have wide-ranging benefits in the industry, including — and most importantly, ATA says — broader compliance with hours of service limits set by the U.S. DOT.
ATA cites proprietary research it says backs up its claims, saying drivers who use ELDs have “a 53 percent lower driving-related HOS violation risk than non-equipped trucks and 49 percent lower non-driving-related HOS violation risk than non-equipped trucks.” The same study cited there also revealed lower crash risk among trucks using ELDs, the association says in its brief.
In the filing, ATA says OOIDA’s fears of regulators and carriers using the devices to track drivers in real-time is an “illogical extreme.” Furthermore, the rule takes measures to prevent such a scenario, ATA argues.
The same day ATA filed its brief, a separate brief was filed by the Trucking Alliance (fully known as the Trucking Alliance for Driver Safety and Security) and the Advocates for Auto and Highway Safety.
