Ignoring Duty Status Logs

This document outlines the details and use cases behind the Ignore HOS logs feature of the ELD solution.

What is the Ignore Logs Feature?

The Ignore Logs feature provides a simple way to adjust driver availability in the case of user error when generating automatic duty status logs. Users can modify their availability by annotating and ignoring the automatic log. When a log is ignored, it is not taken into account for availability purposes. In effect, the system will count that log as the same status as the log directly preceding it.

What is it for?

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) Electronic Logging Device (ELD) mandate prohibits editing automatically captured duty status logs. Users cannot edit their driving time, whether normal driving or driving using an exemption such as Personal Conveyance (PC), or to assign to a different driver.

If the user generates automatic logs in error, the FMCSA has provided guidance on how to annotate the log to show the correct information. For example, if a driver forgets to enable the Yard Move (YM) exemption before driving, they can annotate the log to capture YM driving, and not normal driving. This satisfies the FMCSA and the ELD mandate. For more information about editing duty status logs, please see the FMCSA ELD Tech FAQ.

Duty status logs are also used to calculate each driver’s availability, based on the driving they have already completed. In the example above, the driver’s annotation satisfies the FMCSA requirements; however, it does not indicate that the log should be exempt from driving time calculations. In this case, using the Ignore log feature will force the availability calculator to ignore the log in the Telematics Provider system when calculating daily availability. The availability calculator then skips the ignored log, or calculates it as a continuation of the previous log.

How does it work?

After the driver annotates the log explaining how it should be calculated, an Administrator must “ignore” the driver’s duty status logs in the Fleet Management Application. The Administrator can open the HOS Log Edit page by selecting the appropriate log on the driver’s Duty Status Logs page. Toggle the Ignored setting at the bottom of the page to Yes, and add an annotation explaining the reason for ignoring the log.

Once a log is Ignored, it will be shaded in grey in the fleet management application.

In the mobile application, the log will be dimmed. The driver will need to verify the log due to the new annotation added.

‼ WARNING: This functionality should only be carefully used to correct erroneous logs as they relate to the driver availability calculations within the ELD product. Incorrect use of this feature may result in incorrect driver availability reflected within the ELD product which can result in violations of the FMCSA or other applicable regulations.

✱ NOTE: Drive and YM duty status logs in the fleet management application always end with an Automatic ON status, while PC logs end in an Automatic OFF status. In some instances, it may be necessary for the administrator to ignore both the log associated with the vehicle movement itself and the log directly following it. Manual logs cannot be ignored because they can simply be edited to the correct status.

✱ NOTE: Ignored logs are included in FMCSA transfers and Roadside Display in their original form with no indication that they have been ignored by the application (the added annotation does appear). This is because the feature is designed to interact only with the availability calculations within the Telematics Provider system, which is not part of the ELD mandate. Due to this, the drivers graph shown in the system will show logs normally and calculate daily totals normally as well. To see the results of Ignoring logs, please use the Availability page.

Additional use cases

Case A

A driver forgets to log out at the end of the day. Overnight, the vehicle is moved by a worker who does not use ELD. This creates a drive log in the middle of the driver’s overnight rest period. Because the vehicle was not operated by the driver, the drive logs can be ignored with an annotation stating the logs were created by a different driver.

Case B

A driver is completing a Sleeper Berth split for eight hours at a rest stop. An emergency arises and they must move the vehicle. The driver uses PC to move the vehicle because they are off duty, then returns to Sleeper Berth. In this case, the availability calculator recognizes two periods of Sleeper Berth, separated by a very brief PC log.

After speaking to the local FMCSA field office, the driver states that the small PC movement does not count as interrupting the Sleeper Berth period. The FMCSA field office advises that the PC log can be ignored. As a result the driver’s availability recognizes a proper Sleeper Berth log for the purpose of the Sleeper Berth split.