Hope for Produce Carriers
Some great news is here for produce and agricultural carriers. Now, these carriers can ignore the hours of service regulations along with ELD requirements (electronic logging device) while they are within 150 miles of a shipper or receiver. The new update and guidance released by the FMCSA on Thursday, June 7, 2018 will be in effect for the next 5 years to start. This is great news for produce and livestock carriers.
What this means for Carriers with ELD
This practically means that when a carrier is within 150 miles of picking up or dropping off an agriculture load, that they do not have to comply with the ELD or related HOS regulations, making it much less stressful and cumbersome to handle these loads.
This is sure to help when there are multiple stops, additional wait time or movement needed in and around docks when hauling ag loads.
This is welcome news, as many produce companies were feeling the pinch of crammed docks and additional detention time, among other issues that arose when the ELD mandate took full effect on April 1 of 2018.
Issues with livestock transportation was also a factor that helped to move the needled on the update from the FMCSA.
Are there more amendments or updates to the ELD regulations yet to come? Keep your fingers crossed. It seems as though the shippers helps pushed this update over the top but continue to stay active in your trucking groups and communities.
Excerpt from the FMCSA site:
The HOS regulations do not apply to the transportation of agricultural commodities operating completely within the 150 air-mileradius by for hire or private carriers. Therefore, work and driving hours are not limited and the driver is also not required to use an Electronic Logging Device (ELD) or keep paper logs. In an operation where a driver uses a vehicle equipped with an ELD, a driver that is exempt can use an “Exempt Driver” account or annotate the time as exempt ag operation
Read the full update
We recommend carriers review the full guidance provided by the FMCSA on their website at this updated FMCSA link here to get completely up to speed on the details. Staying compliance saves you time and money in the end.
We’ll continue to try to help you with invoice advances and finding more business in the meantime. Stay tuned for more as we try to keep you up to date on relevant industry news.
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