ELD Compliance Guide: What the ELD Enforces and What Fleets Still Do

ELD compliance comes from three parts working together: the GPS tracking device in the vehicle, the ELD app on the driver's phone or tablet, and an hours-of-service ruleset assigned to each driver in the High Point GPS platform. With High Point GPS, a Geotab partner, that ELD app is Geotab Drive. The device supplies the engine-tied movement, location and odometer data the regulation requires. The driver uses the app to log in, change duty status, certify logs and show the record at roadside. In the High Point GPS platform, the carrier assigns rules, reviews logs, handles edits and pulls the records an auditor asks for.

For the United States, the ELD is self-certified and listed on the FMCSA's ELD registry. For Canada, where the mandate requires third-party certification, it is third-party certified. A cross-border fleet needs both, because a device that complies in one country does not automatically comply in the other.

Once you assign a ruleset, the app counts the driver down: driving time left, time left in the on-duty window, when the required break is due, and hours remaining in the cycle. It warns the driver before a limit is reached, instead of only recording the violation afterward. The ELD detects movement from the engine, so a driver cannot sit in off-duty status while the truck is rolling. The app switches to driving, which is the behaviour the regulation exists to guarantee.

You assign rulesets per driver, not per fleet. A carrier running under both the US property-carrying rules and the Canadian cycles gives each driver the set that matches their operation, and can move a driver who crosses the border from one set to the other. Exceptions and special categories (personal conveyance, yard moves, the adverse-driving extension, the US short-haul exception) are switched on per driver in the High Point GPS platform. None of them is on by default.

At the start of the day, the driver logs into the driver app, confirms the vehicle and completes the pre-trip DVIR if the fleet uses one. During the shift the app shows the current status and the hours remaining. On duty, off duty and sleeper each take a tap, and the engine sets driving automatically. At the end of the shift the driver certifies the day's log. At roadside, the app produces the record for transfer or display in whatever form the officer requests.

Discipline shows up in the edits. A driver can annotate and propose edits, and a carrier can suggest them, but the driver has to accept any change, and the original record is never overwritten. Inspectors and auditors can see the full edit history, so a fleet's edit rate is one of the first things a compliance review looks at.

A certified ELD gives you the tool, and your fleet still has to run the practice. The carrier has to assign the right ruleset to every driver and keep six months of logs and supporting documents. It has to review unassigned driving time (movement recorded when nobody was logged in) and either assign it or annotate it. Malfunctions must be repaired within eight days under the US rule, or within 14 days under the Canadian rule (or when the driver returns to the home terminal, if a planned trip runs longer). Drivers need training on the app, on their rights at roadside and on what each special category is for.

The failures to watch for are these: unassigned driving left to pile up, a driver on the wrong ruleset for the trip, personal conveyance used to move the load forward, and a malfunction nobody noticed. The platform's exception rules can flag each of these. A fleet that sets those rules up and reviews them every week covers the part the device cannot.

These are the checks a carrier runs in the High Point GPS platform each week to cover what the device cannot, with the report or rule behind each one.