FreightWaves spoke with Daren Hansen, CTP, CTRE, Sr. Compliance Expert at J. J. Keller & Associates, Inc., about the widening gap between carriers who use their ELDs merely to satisfy a mandate and those who leverage ELD data to run smarter, safer, and more scalable operations. With a wave of enforcement actions already underway and a high-profile inspection blitz on the horizon, Hansen says the stakes have never been higher for getting ELD compliance right.
The timing of this conversation is no accident. The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s (CVSA) updated ELD enforcement policy takes effect April 1, expanding the consequences for tampering and falsification. Drivers caught manipulating their ELD data may now be placed out of service for a full 10 hours. Meanwhile, CVSA’s annual International Roadcheck, scheduled for May 12–14, will feature ELD tampering, falsification, and manipulation as a driver-side emphasis area.
On the regulatory side, FMCSA has already revoked 27 ELDs so far this year, continuing a crackdown that has forced carriers to scramble for replacement devices on short notice. The agency has also signaled its intent to write new regulations tightening the standards for ELD approval in the first place.
Against that backdrop, Hansen says the first order of business is to pick the right ELD vendor.
“Quite a few motor carriers are making poor decisions when it comes to basic ELD compliance, so motor carriers really need to vet their ELD providers carefully, making sure their provider is both tech-savvy and compliance-savvy,” Hansen said. “Picking randomly from FMCSA’s ELD list is not enough.”
That last point carries extra weight given the pace of revocations. A carrier relying on a device that suddenly loses its FMCSA registration faces immediate operational disruption. Drivers can’t legally use it, and finding, procuring, installing, and training on a replacement system takes time and money. Hansen argues that choosing a vendor with a long, compliance-focused track record is the single most important risk-mitigation step a fleet can take.
But vendor selection is only the beginning. Carriers also need to actively monitor what’s happening inside the cab once a device is installed, according to Hansen. Are drivers able to make unauthorized edits (changing drive time into personal conveyance, for example)? Can they sign into “ghost” accounts or otherwise hide violations? Is the vendor itself enabling that behavior, whether intentionally or inadvertently?
“Those are serious red flags that need to be addressed,” Hansen said. “How can a motor carrier expect to be compliant if their ELD vendor doesn’t take compliance seriously?”
The foundational compliance work, Hansen explains, is what he calls “ELDs 1.0,” the basic blocking and tackling that every carrier should already have in place. As designed by FMCSA, ELDs are recording devices. Regulators use the data to verify hours-of-service compliance.
To ensure your fleet can survive an inspection or audit, Hansen recommends that fleets choose a proven vendor, enact written HOS policies, and audit drivers’ logs consistently. When violations surface, enforce those policies through progressive discipline.
ELD data, in other words, exposes whether these basic management controls exist. If a carrier doesn’t have them, the data will tell regulators (and, increasingly, plaintiffs’ attorneys) everything they need to know.
That’s where the conversation takes a more forward-looking turn. Hansen describes what he calls “ELDs 2.0,” a mindset shift from treating the device as a passive compliance recorder to treating it as an intelligence engine that reveals why events are happening in the first place.
“ELDs and related telematics systems can be valuable way beyond their ability to just record hours of service or other data, and carriers can be at a competitive disadvantage, not to mention putting themselves at risk, if they don’t leverage the systems’ capabilities,” Hansen said.
The data a modern ELD platform can supply goes well beyond electronic logs. It can illuminate driver and asset availability, utilization patterns, the effectiveness of dispatch practices, and risky driving behaviors like harsh braking, speeding, excessive RPMs, and cruise control misuse. It can flag misuse of HOS exceptions, reveal whether violations are isolated incidents or systemic problems, and even surface insights into fuel efficiency, maintenance needs, and out-of-route miles.
The key, Hansen says, is how that data gets used. Too many carriers only look at their ELD data reactively, i.e., after an audit, after an investigation, after a crash. More successful fleets take the opposite approach.
“The most sophisticated fleets don’t just ask whether drivers are compliant, they ask what the data is telling them about how the business actually operates,” Hansen said. “In effect, ELD data becomes ‘decision intelligence’ when it’s treated as a continuous management signal rather than just a static compliance record.”
That means reviewing data consistently and trending it over time to identify patterns across hours of service, driving behaviors, fuel consumption, asset downtime, and dispatch operations. It means feeding those insights into coaching, training, corrective action, safety management systems, internal audits, and risk assessments.
Hansen acknowledges that the volume of telematics data available to modern fleets can feel overwhelming. Many companies see it as an unmanageable firehose and default to using the data only after a problem has already occurred.
“Too many companies see their telematics data as an unmanageable firehose and only use the data reactively after there’s a problem, like when there’s an audit or investigation or they’ve had a crash,” Hansen said. “But there are so many other proactive and predictive things they can do with that data to mitigate risk and prevent those problems from happening in the first place.”
Regulators and litigators are increasingly viewing ELD data not just as a record of driver behavior but as evidence of management oversight, or the lack of it. In that environment, the carriers that treat their ELD platforms as intelligence engines rather than digital logbooks will be better prepared for enforcement actions, better insulated from litigation risk, and better equipped to run efficient, scalable operations.
The enforcement landscape is only going to get tighter. The question for every carrier is whether their ELD strategy is keeping pace.
To learn more about J. J. Keller’s Encompass® ELD solution, visit KellerEncompass.com/electronic-logging-devices.
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