Unidentified driving events can happen at any time when a vehicle with an electronic logging device (ELD) is moved without someone being logged in as the driver. The ELD mandate is the comprehensive final rule published by the FMCSA (federal motor carrier safety administration) on December 16, 2015. ELDs are now the only compliant electronic log to be used by commercial drivers who are required to prepare hours-of-service records of duty status.

As the owner of a trucking business, you work hard to make sure everything runs as smoothly as possible. In fact, you may find that you’re spending more time trying to manage your taxes, track paperwork, and arrange permits than you are actually running your business. Contact the experts at A1 Consulting today to get help with managing unidentified driving events, bookkeeping, and more.

Mandate Changes

Before the ELD mandate went into effect, many trucking companies that used electronic logs simply ignored unidentified driving events or dealt with them in their spare time. Since the mandate has changed expectations, carriers now must either assign the time to the correct driver or attach a comment explaining why it couldn’t be assigned to a driver. This means you no longer have a third option to simply ignore the event, hide it in the system, or delete it. During an audit, you’ll be required to show how the carrier was either assigned or explain the unassigned drive time.

The intense focus on these unassigned driving events during an audit is that these actions were one of the most commonly used falsification methods used by drivers to create an 8- to 10- hour break when one didn’t exist or to operate past their set limit.

Investigate the Time

Since the onus is on you to manage all unidentified driving events, there are some steps you can take to make your life a little easier. To investigate ELD unassigned miles, make sure that as you review the unassigned driving time in the system, you cover these items:

• Determine who drove the vehicle before and after the unassigned time
• Determine if the vehicle was in a company yard or maintenance facility, as this could account for someone other than one of the assigned drivers using the vehicle
• Review maintenance records to see if the truck was towed or moved by a mechanic
• Contact the driver(s) if it is still not clear who was driving the vehicle

Reviewing these items will help you determine if a driver took advantage of the unassigned time to operate over a limit or simply made an honest mistake. You may discover that a driver honestly forgot to log in or logged out early and then had more, unexpected driving, to complete.

Daily Routines

A lot can happen during any given day, and you may find that time simply got away from you when it came to investigating unidentified driving events. To prevent these events from piling up and creating a small mountain of work for you to complete, find a place in your daily routine to create time specifically for this work. Not only will you prevent the work on these events from rapidly accumulating, but you’ll also be able to address unassigned driving events in a timely manner. The timeliness of your response will communicate to all of your drivers the importance of logging their time accurately and honestly and show that you are keeping an eye on what is going on.

Prevention Tips

Now that we’ve discussed the steps you can take to identify the unassigned drive time and make it part of your daily routine, let’s look at how you can prevent it in the first place.

Train your drivers to:

• Always log in when operating a vehicle with a logging device
• Always claim unassigned driving time when it is offered to them if it is theirs
• Never move a vehicle when logged out

By continually emphasizing this piece of training both with new and experienced drivers, you should see a significant decrease in unidentified driving events.

Your Trucking Insurance Experts

While managing unidentified driving events isn’t necessarily difficult, it can be incredibly time-consuming. You want to run an efficient trucking company, and we want to help. Contact A1 Consulting today to learn about the variety of business packages we offer to help you keep things running as smoothly as possible.