FMCSA Denies OOIDA Petition for Small Carrier Reprieve from ELD Compliance

On July 2, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) announced that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) denied their petition for a reprieve from ELD compliance for small carriers with clean safety records. Specifically, OOIDA’s petition called for businesses with less than $27.5 million in annual revenue, be allowed to continue using paper logs to record duty status if they had no at-fault crashes and did not have a safety rating of Unsatisfactory. Once FMCSA publishes its decision in the Federal Register, we will know why the agency denied OOIDA’s petition.

OOIDA’s November filing for an exemption came after the group unsuccessfully fought the mandate in court. During 2016, the association filed a lawsuit against FMCSA seeking to overturn the mandate, but the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled in favor of FMCSA. OOIDA has since appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the appeal was denied.