The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) on Thursday, November 12, removed 133 electronic logging devices (ELDs) from its federal registry in what U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy called the largest ELD revocation in the agency's history. The sweep covers 121 devices revoked directly by the agency and 12 voluntary self-revocations, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).

Source: Commercial Carrier Journal

ELDs are the devices that replaced paper logbooks for most commercial truck drivers. They connect to a truck's engine and automatically record driving time, so that the federal hours-of-service rules — including the rule that a driver can drive no more than 11 hours before taking a break — can be checked at the roadside. A device that can be manipulated defeats the entire system, because the log it produces looks legal even when the driver has been behind the wheel far beyond the limit.

In its investigations, FMCSA said it found support systems that allowed carriers to manually wipe out driving time during active transit, automated uploading of fake logs during roadside inspections, and records showing speeds reaching mathematically impossible levels — upwards of 130 mph, according to DOT — to artificially compress transit times.

Source: Commercial Carrier Journal

Three fraud patterns the DOT named

A DOT press release on Thursday gave three examples of how the fraud plays out, reported by Overdrive. In the first, an ELD company allowed carriers to completely bypass hours-of-service limits by calling a support line to manually wipe out driving time and fabricate rest periods while actively driving. In the second, a company was caught actively uploading fake logs during an active roadside inspection to cover up an overworked driver operating hours beyond the legal limit. In the third, logs showed drivers travelling at mathematically impossible speeds of up to 130 miles per hour to compress driving time.

Source: Overdrive

“Under President Trump's leadership, we are cracking down on rampant fraud on America's roads. This latest crackdown — which required hundreds of man hours and extensive forensic investigations — will prevent criminals from cooking the books, sabotaging trucker wages, and endangering you and your family when you drive,” Duffy said in a statement.

The phone call that reset a driver's clock — with the FMCSA chief in the passenger seat

The move follows Overdrive reporting that FMCSA was confronted with direct evidence of ELD fraud in DeKalb, Illinois, by fleet owner Zach Meiborg, who had a driver pull up to a police station and get his hours reset on the spot. In a video released by DOT on Thursday, the same driver, Francis “Bink” Buchanan of Meiborg Inc., phoned his ELD's call centre and had his hours reset again — this time with FMCSA Administrator Derek D. Barrs riding in the passenger seat. “Magically I can drive for another 11-12-14 hours,” Buchanan said in the video.

Source: Overdrive

“Commercial drivers can only drive 11 hours without having to take a break. They keep those hours of service through an electronic logging device, but these devices are being manipulated by fraudsters overseas,” Barrs said in the video. Because the logs are reset, often by overseas call centres, to look perfect, most roadside inspectors cannot easily catch the fraudulent logs in operation, and an inspector in the video told Barrs the manipulation is not something that can readily be detected when an outside force is altering the logs.

For Meiborg, the issue is economic as well as about safety. “My cost to run the truck down the road is about $3 to send these trucks down the road,” he told Barrs in the video, filmed November 2. “Where these guys can operate more miles, they're bringing their costs down to about $2 per mile.” Meiborg estimated about one million trucks on the road today run non-compliant logs, and told Overdrive after the announcement: “We have 600 more illegal ELDs to go, and we're not going to stop until the fraud has been routed out.” Leading researchers cited by Overdrive say around 75% of the roughly 900 ELDs registered with FMCSA may allow cheating, and research by the National Motor Freight Traffic Association found that of then-approximately 1,050 registered ELDs, roughly three-quarters were “white labelled” and appeared to share underlying hardware and software with other registered devices.

What drivers and carriers must do now

Motor carriers using the affected devices have up to 60 days to replace them with compliant alternatives, Commercial Carrier Journal reported. Safety officials enforcing the regulations on or after November 24, 2026, are directed to cite non-compliant operators and place drivers out of service if they continue using revoked units. Providers that correct identified deficiencies may petition to have their devices reinstated. FMCSA posts the full list of revoked devices on its website, where it can be sorted by the November 12 revocation date — drivers should check their exact device name and ELD identifier against that list rather than relying on summaries.

Source: Commercial Carrier Journal

“Motor carriers must have confidence that every device on FMCSA's public registry is compliant, secure, and actively supported,” Barrs said. “We are removing noncompliant and fraudulent devices to close loopholes that can be exploited to evade oversight, avoid revocation, bypass vetting requirements, or undermine accurate hours-of-service records. This action protects law-abiding carriers and drivers and makes clear that FMCSA will not tolerate devices that compromise the integrity of the ELD system.” Barrs has also said more revocations are coming.

Why this matters for Punjabi truckers

Trucking is one of the largest employers of Punjabi diaspora families in the United States — from the Central Valley of California to Indiana, Texas and Washington — and hours-of-service fraud is a complaint compliant Punjabi owner-operators have raised for years: a driver who follows the 11-hour rule cannot compete on price with one whose log can be reset by a phone call. Thursday's action is the biggest single step FMCSA has taken against that advantage. At the same time, it creates an immediate compliance cost for any small carrier whose device is on the revoked list, including carriers who bought their ELDs in good faith.

The revocation is part of a broader administration trucking-safety push that DOT says has, since April 2025, included placing 34,000 drivers out of service for language-proficiency issues, shutting down nearly 10,000 driving schools, and revoking more than 31,000 licences issued to unvetted foreign drivers — figures the department presented alongside Thursday's announcement. FMCSA has dropped almost 221 ELDs from its registered list this year, although some devices have been added back after regaining compliance.

What happens next

Roadside enforcement of the November 12 revocations begins November 24, and carriers have a replacement window of up to 60 days to move to a compliant device. Providers can petition for reinstatement once deficiencies are corrected. With Barrs signalling further revocations — and Meiborg putting the remaining illegal devices at around 600 — carriers should expect the registry to keep shrinking, and should verify any new ELD purchase against FMCSA's current registered list before installing it.