Ben Franklin once said: "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." Two hundred years after he first popularized it, Franklin's maxim lives on. In the case of today's truckers, however, being early to bed in order to become healthy, wealthy and wise is rarely an option.

They face intense pressure to meet delivery deadlines, and to make a living they must often put in long hours on the road. Those long hours naturally tend to make truckers tired. And being tired puts them more at risk of causing truck accidents.

That is where federal limits on allowable hours of service for truck drivers come in. These rules establish mandatory limits on how much truckers are allowed to drive in given periods of time before they are required to take a break.

Enforcing these limits can be challenging, however, because the paper log books that truckers have traditionally used are so easy to alter. What's needed is to a way to better monitor trucker compliance with the hours-of-service limits.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration believes that electronic on-board recorders (EOBRs) will be this better way. Instead of paper logs so susceptible to alteration, EOBRs will enable safety regulators to digitally track truck operation.

The trucking industry has mounted a legal challenge to the FMCSA's attempt to put a mandatory EOBR rule in place. But even as that challenge plays out, trucking companies would do well to voluntarily install the recorders. Using them would make it safer for everyone out there on the road.

Source: TheTrucker.com, "Court extends time for FMCSA to respond to OOIDA brief on EOBRs," Jan. 27, 2012