U.S. Department of Transportation will be obligated to start a project dedicated to studying the increase or decrease in the number of truck drivers that have stopped driving because of ELD rules.

ELD stands for Electronic Logging Device, which is basically created for truck drivers to record their hours electronically rather than the old-fashioned way, which is on paper logbooks. This is to make sure the drivers all following the Record of Duty Status (RODS) rule as well as the Hours of Service regulations (HOS).

The RODS rule is the log that drivers are required to use to record the number of hours they have been on the job. The HOS regulations put a limitation on the number of hours that each driver can work. This is to prevent long driving hours that go above the limit. HOS regulations have different rules for property-carrying drivers and passenger-carrying drivers.

This new bill that will conduct a study on ELD and drivers is called H.R. 6159. This bill was presented to the House of Representatives by U.S. Representative Kevin Cramer just last week.

His goal is to find out why so many truckers with years of experience have been quitting, and he seems to think that the ELD requirements have an effect on them.

On his Facebook page, he posted a statement about this issue. He stated, “I introduced [the bill] to require the U.S. [DOT} to conduct a study about how many of our great truckers have quit their jobs due to [ELD] requirements.”

If this bill gets passed, the Secretary of Transportation will have 180 days to organize the study and must report the results to House members.  They would also have to report everything to Senate members on Commerce, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the Education and Workforce Committee, and a few other organizations.

Representative Kevin Cramer created two other bills as well. Bills H.R. 5948 and H.R. 5949 will give small trucking companies and local haulers the pass to not be under ELD regulations.

As they make their decision, truck drivers still remain to be following the ELD rules for now and the majority of them remain to leave the workforce.