The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has issued a regulatory guidance simplifying the record keeping and retention requirements for driver logs.

In response to a petition for an exemption filed by a member of the American Trucking Associations, drivers can now scan an image of their original log and send it to the carrier.

Drivers must then keep the original record for the current and previous seven days when on duty, and carriers under this guidance must retain the electronic copies for six months.

Effective immediately, the practice now applies to all carriers relying on this guidance.

"There is no readily apparent reason that the location at which the original RODS is scanned into an image for subsequent electronic storage and retrieval should matter for the purposes of compliance with the recordkeeping requirements," the new guidance said. Furthermore, there is no apparent reason to limit the means of submitting the information to the carrier; electronic submission is an efficient and reasonable alternative to mailing the document to the carrier or delivering it in person."