A major AT&T outage on Thursday, Feb. 22, raised questions about how truckers can remain compliant if their electronic logging devices fail.
Simply put, truck drivers may need to rely on paper records to track their hours worked. This was the standard until ELDs became federally mandated, he said in 2017.
“If the ELD is down and unable to transfer information, safety officials will use the ELD display or printout to verify compliance,” says Tom, Compliance and Regulation Specialist with the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association.・Mr. Crowley said. “The problem is, if the ELD doesn't have information about the past seven days, then you have to go back in time and recreate his seven days.”
Tens of thousands of AT&T customers were reportedly without cell phone service Thursday. AT&T said service was restored by Thursday afternoon, but it does not believe the outage was caused by a cyberattack.
“Based on our initial investigation, we believe today's outage was not caused by a cyber-attack, but rather by the incorrect application and execution of processes used in expanding our network,” the company said Thursday night. wrote. “We are continuing to assess today's outage to ensure we continue to provide the service our customers deserve.”
This technology can be needed for a variety of reasons, including ELDs, dispatch, mapping, weather forecasting, and engine control module updates, so cell phone service outages can be very problematic for truck drivers. There is a gender.
This is the first major outage since ELDs became mandatory in 2017.
For truck drivers who started working after the mandate, Crowley expressed concern about how many know how to fill out a paper register.
“There are a lot of drivers who have only used ELDs,” Crowley said. “If you give them paper records, they're going to get lost. Right now, people rely so much on ELDs to track their time. In the past, it was the driver's responsibility to keep track of the time. I think there are a lot of drivers who don't know how to keep track of the time.
Lou Pugh, executive vice president of OOIDA, emphasized the importance of truckers taking note of why they must transition to paper logs.
“Write down why you're doing what you're doing,” Pugh says. “Because when the audit comes in five months later, people forget about it.”
Crowley noted that the U.S. Department of Transportation can request logs that are up to six months old.
OOIDA, which has long opposed ELD mandates, Warning about technology and cybersecurity concerns.
Pew said concerns about technology outages are amplified “millions of times” when discussing self-driving cars.
“If an ELD fails, no one dies. If an AV fails, it's a family of five,” he said. LL
