Unidentified Driving with Mechanics

Mechanics often have to move the vehicle during maintenance, and this results in unidentified driving time for the vehicle. As the mechanics are not drivers, Fleet managers are often unsure of how to handle that time in a way that is compliant with the ELD mandate.

For this purpose, Fleet Managers who experience this should create a Driver ID for their mechanics. Ideally, the mechanics should log into this account when working on a vehicle so that all driving time is assigned as it is generated. While this may not be convenient for the mechanics, it is the best way to ensure there is no unidentified driving time. 

In circumstances where this is not practical, it is also a functional solution for the Fleet Manager to simply assign that unidentified driving time to the mechanic account after the fact. However, the unidentified driving time will be on that vehicle's record until it is both assigned to a mechanic and accepted by them.

As a last resort, a driver may annotate their logs to explain the time. To do so, they need to simply add a comment to their logs explaining the reason for the unidentified time. If there is supporting documentation of this unidentified time, such as maintenance logs, copies should be made and provided to the driver. For obvious reasons, however, it is far preferable to have no unidentified driving time than unidentified driving time that is explained.