Car accidents are dangerous enough on their own, and when a semi-trailer truck enters the picture, the risks can become all the more prevalent. Driver fatigue is an increasingly common issue in Colorado and across the nation, and truckers are not exempt from this frightening statistic. However, companies have taken steps to make the trucking industry safer in recent years. Most of those efforts revolve around timing itself.
Since 2015, employees in the trucking business have had to tighten gears when it comes to shifts. As U.S. News relays, despite the fact that truckers have had to record hours for decades, only recently have they been required to log them electronically. Logging long hand has proved difficult in the past, as U.S. News shares that some truckers have attempted to evade hourly restrictions by avoiding logging hours altogether. Certainly an improvement, electronic logging tracks engine hours and vehicle movement. Electronic logging can also record location and miles driven. Companies had two years from the time the new regulation took place to install the devices into the trucks of all employees.
Truckers who express confusion over hourly restrictions can look to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for additional help. According to the overview listed on the FMCSA's website, this electronic logging rule applies to most drivers and carriers who must record all duties of a shift; commercial buses and trucks also must follow regulations. Depending on specific deadlines, companies must have begun this safety procedure by certain dates (one deadline, for instance, ends in December 2019). Employers must also properly instruct drivers on the varying features of the devices, including maintaining, annotating and certifying records of duty status (these records are commonly known as RODS). Employees can find out more about specific regulations on logging hours by looking to company policies, as well as the additional information provided on FMCSA's website.
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