The National Private Truck Council has followed the lead of the American Trucking Associations and the Truckload Carriers Association, coming out with a policy endorsing the federal government's proposal to mandate electronic onboard recorders to track driver hours of service for nearly all carriers.

The NPTC board of directors adopted the new policy during its meeting at the group's annual convention in Cincinnati over the weekend. Rick Schweitzer, the group's counsel, recommended the policy change and announced it to the general membership in attendance Monday.

The group had three conditions for its support:

1. The technology must be cost effective and accurate.

2. It must protect data ownership and access for carriers and drivers. "It's unnerving for defense attorneys to know there's going to be an EOBR with information on the driver's operations and probably a lot of other data, like truck braking speed is available, and we want to protect to the extent we can access to that data," he said.

3. Eliminate all supporting document requirements. "It makes no sense to have a 21st century electronic system and still have this requirement that you have to have all your fuel receipts and dispatch orders and 32 other documents to check against the electronic logs," Schweitzer said.

He noted that most private carriers of any size have already adopted some sort of electronic onboard recorders, so it's not a huge leap for this segment of the industry.

"It's going to happen," he said. "This is one time we can be on the side of the angels, we can be the good guys saying we support technology to help us comply with HOS rules.

Probably the most important reason to adopt EOBRs, Schweitzer said, is the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's new CSA enforcement program.

"One of the BASIC areas where carriers are scored is in driver fatigue, and most of the violations for driver fatigue have nothing to do with fatigue or drivers exceeding their hours -- they're paperwork violations," he said. "If you go to a complete EOBR system, I think it will eliminate a lot of those violations."

In March, TCA adopted a new policy in favor of electronic logging and will support the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's proposed near-universal mandate for electronic onboard recorders (EOBRs) to track driver hours of service.

ATA followed suit earlier this month, announcing that its membership endorsed a policy supporting federal laws and regulations that would require trucking companies to use electronic logging devices to monitor driver hours-of-service.

ATA had the same concerns about the law as NPTC when it came to affordability/accuracy, protection of privacy and supporting documents.

The current FMCSA rule, which will go into effect June 4, 2012, says that carriers that violate hours of service rules 10 percent of the time, based on single compliance review, must use electronic onboard recorders to track driver hours. It will affect only 5,700 interstate carriers.

The rule the agency is now proposing, which will go into effect three years after it is made final, will cover all of the approximately 500,000 carriers now required to maintain driver logs. It will create a market for at least 2 million recorders by one estimate, although other estimates go as high as 3.4 million. It also covers requirements for documentation to prove compliance with the hours of service rule, and it would require carriers to monitor driver compliance with the rule.

Under the proposal, violators of the recorder requirement would face civil penalties of up to $11,000 for each offense. Noncompliance would also negatively impact a carrier's safety fitness rating and DOT operating authority, the agency said.

The proposal will not apply to short-haul interstate carriers that use timecards to document hours of service.

In addition, two senators have restarted last year's effort to pass a bill that would mandate electronic onboard recorders on most trucks.