The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s (CVSA) Operation Safe Driver Week set for July 9-15 will focus on speeding, the No. 2 driver violation in the U.S. based on Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration data from September to present, according to Kerri Wirachowsky, director of inspection programs at CVSA.
During a recent webinar “Mastering Fleet Compliance and Safety Regulations: An Inside Look with CVSA,” hosted by vehicle lifecycle management software provider Solera, Wirachowsky walked the audience through the top vehicle and driver violations. On the driver side, she said the No. 1 violation is failure to obey traffic signals. On the vehicle side, she said the No. 1 violation is lighting.
But the webinar focused heavily on eRODS (Electronic Record of Duty Status) violations, which came in at No. 3 on the driver side. With the recent enforcement of electronic logging devices (ELD) in Canada, Wirachowsky said it is important for motor carriers that operate in both places to educate their drivers on cross-border operations and the differences in regulations to avoid eRODS citations.
“My advice to people that are going back and forth, make sure your driver knows, particularly if it's paper, the difference between what he's supposed to produce to an American inspector and what he's supposed to produce to a Canadian inspector because they're not the same at all,” Wirachowsky said.
She said inspectors generally aren’t trained on the rules outside of their jurisdictions. For example, Canadian inspectors are trying to understand the difference in what they were looking at before – automatic onboard recording devices – versus what they’re looking at now: ELDs. It’s causing a lot of confusion, Wirachowsky said.
Florence Dougherty, director of product management at Omnitracs said motor carriers need to educate drivers on how to make sure their ELD is representative of the jurisdiction they're in.
“What's happening is you are allowed to drive under Canadian rules, so when in Rome, and anybody on this call that travels in both knows that the Canadian rules are higher: 13 hours driving, 14 hours on duty and 16 hours elapsed. Down in the U.S. it's 11 and 14,” Wirachowsky said. “So when you go to Canada, sure, you can drive 13 hours, you can be on duty 14, and you can do an elapsed of 16, but you need to reset yourself before you come back into the United States.
