Truck Driver Logbook and ELD Violations in Indiana Truck Accidents

• To combat the driver fatigue that frequently leads to devastating truck accidents, the federal government has instituted strict regulations limiting the number of hours that truckers can drive and requiring them to log those hours accurately.
• Logging is almost entirely done by Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs) that automatically record the miles driven and key events during every trip, but truck drivers and trucking companies may try to tamper with ELDs to hide violations.
• If you believe an ELD doesn’t reflect the trucker fatigue that caused a crash, reach out to Hensley Legal Group, PC, which has had proven success with large vehicle injury cases, including a $25 million jury verdict* for an ambulance accident.

*SPECIFIC CASE RESULTS. NO TWO CASES ARE EXACTLY THE SAME.

It often feels like commercial trucks and semi-trailers are practically everywhere you look both in the country as a whole and in Indiana, where they travel more than 9.5 billion miles annually on local roads and interstate highways like I-80. And just like the drivers of any other kind of vehicle, truck drivers sometimes make mistakes that could cause accidents, and they might be more prone than others to one mistake in particular: driving while fatigued.

Whereas most drivers are only in their vehicles for around 60 minutes per day, truck drivers are in their rigs for the majority of their working lives. That much driving can wear them down physically and mentally and make them more likely to miss critical developments in traffic or even fall asleep at the wheel.

To prevent the worst from happening, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has instituted Hours of Service (HOS) regulations that bar over-the-road truckers from driving too long and require them to keep track of their hours, usually with Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs).

Falsifying or tampering with logbooks or ELDs is a violation of federal law, and proof of these sorts of violations could be indispensable to any claim for compensation you might have after being badly hurt by a fatigued trucker. To increase your chances of obtaining it and any other evidence of truck driver or trucking company liability, reach out to the truck accident lawyers at Hensley Legal Group, PC, a dedicated Indiana personal injury law firm whose experienced attorneys have been fighting on behalf of the wrongfully injured since 1998.

Hensley has been named one of the Best Law Firms in the United States by Best Lawyers® and has had a long history of success with large vehicle accident cases, including:

• A $25 million jury verdict for an ambulance accident.
• An $8.0 million settlement for a delivery truck crash.
• A $5.5 million resolution for a semi truck injury claim.

Additionally, Hensley truck accident attorney Sarah Graziano has earned the Trial Lawyer of the Year Award from the Indiana Trial Lawyers Association, while attorneys at the firm have earned inclusion in the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys, the American Association for Justice, Trucking Litigation Group, the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, Super Lawyers, America’s Top 100 Attorneys, and the National Trial Lawyers’ lists of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers and the Top 40 Under 40.

To discover what a knowledgeable Indiana truck accident attorney can do for you and the people you love, please call us at (317) 472-3333, chat with us online, or fill out our contact form today for a free case review.

What Is an Electronic Logging Device (ELD)?

Although research has shown that driving while fatigued can be as impairing as driving while drunk, there is unfortunately no objective method for measuring whether somebody is too exhausted to drive. However, the FMCSA has tried to do the next best thing by enacting HOS regulations that govern how many hours certain truckers can drive and other aspects of their working days.

To verify that they’re in compliance, over-the-road truckers have to track or “log” their driving hours, something that was previously completed with manual logbooks but in the modern era is done almost exclusively by Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs).

An ELD is a piece of electronic hardware synchronized with a truck’s engine that is intended to “automatically record a driver’s off-duty and on-duty time and securely transfer HOS data to a safety official.” The data recorded by an ELD typically includes:

• Vehicle motion status
• Miles driven
• Engine power status
• Engine hours
• Identification of driver/authorized user, vehicle, and motor carrier
• Duty status

Any driver using an ELD has to certify that the record of duty status (RODS) that the device produces is comprehensive and correct, and he or she has an opportunity to enter annotations that provide more detail about how time has been allocated and any driving events that may have arisen. The trucking company can suggest edits to non-driving time too, though these will have to be “either accepted or rejected by the driver during RODS certification.”

HOS logs must be stored for at least six months by the trucking companies and can be downloaded and inspected later on – and frequently are during FMCSA audits and the litigation process. As you can imagine, the accuracy of these logs is of the utmost importance, since they can independently confirm any violations of the Hours of Service rules laid out in Title 49, Part 395 of the Code of Federal Regulations (otherwise known as 49 CFR §395).

Hours of Service Violations Captured by ELDs

Many different FMCSA Hours of Service violations could be relevant to a truck accident investigation, but some of the violations that are most commonly captured by ELDs include:

• Driving Too Long – This might involve violations of 49 CFR §395.3(a)(2), which states that a “driver may not drive after a period of 14 consecutive hours,” or of 49 CFR §395.3(a)(3), which states that a “driver may drive a total of 11 hours during the [14-hour] period.” Basically, a truck driver’s shift can’t last more than 14 hours, with three of those hours reserved for non-driving tasks. Moreover, a new shift can’t begin without the driver first “taking 10 consecutive hours off duty” in keeping with 49 CFR §395.3(a)(1).
• Neglecting to Stop – Under 49 CFR §395.3(a)(3)(ii), a trucker can’t drive more than eight hours in a row “without at least a consecutive 30-minute interruption in driving status,” such as a break or time spent at a loading dock.
• Driving Too Many Hours Per Week – A truck driver’s work week can only last “70 hours in any period of 8 consecutive days” if a trucking company operates every day (49 CFR §395.3(b)(2)) or 60 hours in any period of 7 consecutive days” if it doesn’t operate every day (49 CFR §395.3(b)(1)).
• Starting a Work Week Prematurely – 49 CFR §395.3(c) states that a work week has to “end with the beginning of an off-duty period of 34 or more consecutive hours.”

Manipulating the ELD to hide violations like these is itself a violation of 49 CFR §395.8, under which truckers have to log the hours they drive and update their duty status and other key fields over the course of every trip. Nevertheless, time is money, and many truck drivers may be tempted to put more time in to make more of it, sometimes with implicit encouragement or explicit pressure from the trucking companies, and they might all attempt to scrub their ELDs if disaster should strike.

So what can you do if you believe that truck driver fatigue played a role in your truck accident but the truck’s ELD records don’t appear to reflect it? You can team up with Hensley’s skilled truck accident lawyers, who know how to reconstruct the real timeline leading up to a collision.

How Our Truck Accident Attorneys Can Expose ELD Violations

The truth tends to come out, and that’s definitely true of commercial trucks in the 21st century. Essentially everything that occurs seems to be logged somewhere no matter what truckers or their employers do to cover their tracks, and any inconsistencies that emerge might indicate ELD or truck driver logbook falsification.

If you join the many Hoosiers who choose to hire Hensley, our meticulous truck accident attorneys will go through the ELD records of the truck that hit you with a fine-tooth comb and closely compare them with other information that is regularly generated whenever a truck gets sent out, like:

• Black box and ECM (Electronic or Engine Control Module) data
• GPS (Global Positioning System) movements
• Dispatch messages
• Pickup and delivery timestamps
• Bills of lading
• Gas station and tollbooth receipts
• Cellphone usage
• Dash cam, streetlight, and surveillance footage

Since truck drivers and their employers may be less able to alter this information, it could offer a compelling rebuttal to ELD data whose authenticity you doubt, potentially allowing you to demonstrate that a trucker was actually active in a window of time the ELD marked as “off duty.”

But because evidence like this can be as vulnerable as it is valuable, Hensley’s tenacious truck accident lawyers will do whatever it takes to protect it. For example, our firm’s initial correspondence with the trucking company and any other defendants who may have access to the truck will demand that anything that might be classified as evidence be preserved, including data from the ELD and other onboard devices. We will further warn about the dire consequences of “spoliation of evidence,” defined in Cahoon vs. Cummings as:

“The intentional destruction, mutilation, alteration, or concealment of evidence.”

Being found guilty of spoliation of evidence could subject the defendants to unfavorable jury instructions, stiff fines, and other penalties, a fact that our letter will make abundantly clear.

Aside from safeguarding electronic logging device evidence and whatever else in the defendants’ possession might be pertinent, we will also move swiftly to amass any outside materials that could have some bearing on this incident.

By putting together a rock-solid case that fully conveys the extent of your losses and the depth of the defendants’ misconduct, including with regard to ELD violations, the seasoned truck accident attorneys at our firm may be able to get you the funds you need to get back to normal.

Get in Touch with Hensley’s Indiana Truck Accident Lawyers

Hensley Legal Group has been tirelessly advocating for the innocent victims of negligence for more than 25 years. If you’ve been seriously injured by the improper actions of a truck driver or trucking company in Indiana or any other state, get in touch with Hensley’s Indiana truck accident lawyers to learn how they can help.

You can schedule a complimentary consultation with an accomplished Indiana truck accident attorney by calling us at (317) 472-3333, chatting with us online, or filling out our contact form now.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are Hours of Service regulations?

Hours of Service (HOS) regulations are rules enacted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to combat truck driver fatigue.

FMSCA HOS regulations strictly limit the number of hours that truckers can drive and require them to log those hours accurately, usually with an Electronic Logging Device.

What is an Electronic Logging Device?

An Electronic Logging Device or ELD is a piece of electronic hardware connected to a truck’s engine that automatically records when a truck is being driven and other key incidents during each trip in order to ensure compliance with HOS regulations.

This data can then be downloaded and examined later by various parties if there is a crash.

What do ELDs record?

The standard data recorded by ELDs includes:

• Vehicle motion status
• Miles driven
• Engine power status
• Engine hours
• Identification of driver/authorized user, vehicle, and motor carrier
• Duty status

The device also produces a record of duty status (RODS) that must be certified by the driver, who has an opportunity to provide more detail about time allocation and driving events.

What are the most common ELD violations?

Many different Hours of Service violations could be relevant to a truck accident investigation, but some of the most commonly cited ELD violations include:

• Driving too long
• Neglecting to stop
• Driving too many hours per week
• Starting a work week prematurely

Manipulating the ELD to cover up violations like these is itself a violation of the law, though it can be uncovered by a meticulous lawyer.

How are ELD violations exposed?

A truck accident attorney may be able to expose an attempt to tamper with an ELD to hide any violations that might have taken place by reconstructing the real timeline leading up to a collision.

This is typically achieved by comparing ELD logs with other sources of information, such as black box/ECM data, GPS movements, gas and tollbooth receipts, and delivery records.