ELD mandate: What about trucks plated below 26,000 lbs.?

Q: How will the new e-log rule affect us that are under 26,000 lbs.? —Sam Hart, Newburgh, Ind.

Sam, you’re not the only person to ask this question within the last week. Without knowing more about your operation, it’s clear at least that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration did not allow for any size-related exemption from the electronic logging device requirement as written in its final rule (issued in December) requiring e-log use of most interstate operators.

As we’ve chronicled here in past reporting, vehicles of 1999 model year or older are exempt from complying, and the agency sets a threshold for short-haul drivers who only keep hours of service records of duty status part of the time.

Essentially, under the terms of the final rule, which won’t require ELDs of most operators until December 2017 (assuming it is not derailed or delayed significantly by court challenges), you’ll need an ELD if you’re operating with a logbook for 8 days out of any given 30-day period. Take a listen to the mailbag podcast below for a little more discussion of answers to short-haul/niche-specific questions that came in from readers in December.

One such answer came to a question from an agricultural-only hauler, moving by and large his own product: Would the mandate apply?

Such operators running that product within the 150 air mile agricultural short-haul exemption to the hours of service exclusively are in the clear on e-logs and won’t have to use them.