Common ELD Violations: Fines, Causes and How to Avoid Them

The most common ELD violations are incomplete or inaccurate logs, missed rest breaks and unresolved unassigned driving time. Incomplete logs are the most routine: a driver forgets to log a duty-status change, leaves out a location, or misses a required annotation. Most of these are honest gaps, and they show up when drivers treat logging as an end-of-day chore instead of updating it as the day goes.

Missing the 30-minute break that US FMCSA rules require once a driver has 8 hours of driving without a 30-minute interruption comes up often too, especially on long continuous routes where a driver pushes through to the destination instead of stopping partway. Unassigned driving time is the third common gap. Time logged to a vehicle, with no specific driver attached, has to be reviewed by the carrier and either assigned to the right driver or annotated with the reason, and unresolved unassigned driving segments count as a finding in a DOT audit, so treat them as more than a data-quality nuisance.

Under the penalty schedule in Appendix B to 49 CFR Part 386, a recordkeeping violation (failing to prepare or keep a required record, or keeping an incomplete, inaccurate or false one) carries a maximum civil penalty of $1,584 for each day the violation continues, up to $15,846 total. Knowing falsification of a record of duty status carries a maximum of $15,846. The ceiling is the same, but a falsification finding is far more serious to have on your file.

Hours-of-service violations, which are separate from the recordkeeping violation of how the hours were logged, carry higher maximums: up to $19,246 per violation for motor carriers and up to $4,812 per violation for individual drivers, under the current Appendix B schedule. These figures are ceilings, and FMCSA sets the actual penalty by violation severity and history. Still, they show FMCSA treats a pattern of violations far more seriously than a single isolated one.

The civil penalty is often the smaller part of the cost. Violations stay on a carrier's CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability) score for 24 months. Insurers bring that score up at renewal, brokers weigh it before tendering loads, and inspectors use it to decide how closely to look at your trucks at the next roadside stop.

That makes a strong case for catching these issues before an inspector or auditor does. Your fleet can audit itself on a routine schedule: review unassigned driving time as it comes in, cross-check logged duty status against GPS and engine data, and confirm drivers are taking the required breaks.

Each recurring violation below sits next to the operational cause behind it and the fix that removes that cause. The fines above are US federal maximums, which FMCSA assesses through enforcement cases; Canadian carriers fall under the federal hours-of-service regulations and provincial enforcement.