Previously, with paper logbooks, this wasn’t an issue. But because an ELD records every single trip, that’s a new administrative responsibility for drivers and motor carriers.
The FMCSA’s rationale is that drivers want to fudge their logs so will, at times, avoid logging in rather than attribute every trip to themselves.
In reality, there may be a perfectly legitimate reason that the driver hasn’t logged in. The truck may be being taken for a test drive by a third-party mechanic, or being driven around in the yard to park after being at the workshop.
All these unidentified trips need to be managed when it comes to a safety audit, though. During an FMCSA safety audit the auditor wants to see all unidentified trip reports and the responsibility is on carriers – and drivers – to get it right.
FMSCA has provided two ways for carriers to deal with unidentified driving trips. The first entails assigning them to the correct driver and requiring them to accept or reject each trip. The second applies when the trip doesn’t belong to anyone, in which case the carrier can provide a remark and close it off. For carriers, the trick is to quickly review and manage the trip. This is no small task when you have thousands of such trips to assign.
EROAD’s unique filtering and bulk assign/close options
EROAD’s new Unidentified Trips feature is an elegant solution to a complex problem. In our web application, Depot, you can quickly find the trip you need to assign, with the ability to see all your fleet’s unidentified trips within a specified time period. So if you know a vehicle was out for a repair on certain dates, you can quickly find the specified time frame and annotate the record. You can also filter trips based on trip status, vehicle or group.
We’ve made it even easier than any other provider, allowing our customers to assign and close multiple unidentified trips in bulk. You can bulk assign trips to an individual driver and bulk close trips with the same remark.
Our Unidentified Trips feature keeps you safe in the event of an audit, allowing you to pull reports as the auditor requires them; for example, by date range, and export them as a CSV file.
At EROAD, we know that our compliance = your compliance. Ensuring that your ELD has been designed and tested to do what’s expected equates to less downtime and reduced risk of penalties and fines for you. So if your ELD experience has been less than ideal and you’re ready for a technology partner that believes the minimum is never good enough, make the switch to EROAD.
Soona Lee
Director, Regulatory Compliance - North America
Soona Lee is responsible for understanding regulatory context and policies and technical requirements and translating them for development of the company's suite of compliance products.
