Aaron Huff, writing in Overdrive sister magazine CCJ, recently detailed a question he received from a reader, who’d received a marketing email from the Nashville, Tenn.-based ELD Solutions provider that began with the following question:
Want E-logs that you can edit and add driving time?
The ELD Solutions company was promoting functionality in its electronic log application that allowed use in “AOBRD mode.” Using that mode, the email explained, carriers could simply edit driver logs and not leave a electronic trail showing the original log. “We only store the edited version, and not the original log,” the email said.
AOBRD, regular readers will recall, stands for Automatic On-Board Recording Device, the standards for which are codified in CFR 395.15, which specifies the conditions by which fleets can voluntary use e-logs in lieu of paper logbooks.
The CCJ reader, Huff wrote, wished to remain anonymous, and had this to say about the email he received and forwarded:
As a small carrier who strives for compliance and agrees with the ELD mandate (for the most part), I feel that the ELD mandate only makes sense if the system is an honest one. If drivers or companies are allowed to violate the HOS while technically in “compliance,” then they would gain an unfair competitive advantage.
Reports of e-log edits at fleets using them under the AOBRD standard today abound, of course, as any driver attuned to other drivers’ social media can attest. The extent to which the particularities of the editing feature in ELD Solutions’ application is unique is unknown. But many providers offer users the option to purchase a solution and run it in AOBRD mode, with at least some greater back-office editing flexibility, through December 2019, then switch to ELD mode when the AOBRD grace period ends.
