On October 31, 2016 the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals announced its unanimous vote to keep the Electronic Logging Device (ELD) mandate in place. The Owner Operator Independent Driver Association (OOIDA) who brought the court challenge was disappointed by the ruling and unsure of their next step. The Supreme Court is the next court to appeal to, however there have been reports that they will probably not take up the case if appealed.
The time for activism and complaining is over. Either you comply with the new law that is scheduled to go in effect December 2017 or you leave the industry. You can still operate trucks that are older than model year 2000 and escape the mandate. So in doing that, you’re still in compliance with the ELD mandate. For the others who can’t or won’t operate pre-2000 model year trucks or operate an ELD, they will be leaving the industry. There will be a 
lot of older drivers who are on the edge of retirement or others who are already semi-retired who will hang it up.
Where does that leave independents and small fleets who like me, are operating on paper logs and want to stay in the industry? We need to get on the ball and get serious about which ELD platform we want. Todd Dills wrote an excellent article that can be found here that side by side compares many of the ELD models on the market today. Most of the big fleets are already in compliance. They have much more need for larger fleet platforms that include messaging, tracking, ELDs and more. The small fleets and independents do not need these higher price units and should be looking for stand alone ELD devices that meet the requirement of the mandate as simply and efficiently as possible. Also, keep in mind that most suppliers of ELDs want to charge a monthly subscription that will cost many thousands of dollars in the long run. Make sure you count the total cost of ownership before you sign on to such a plan.
We are just under 14 months to go before the mandate takes effect. Don’t wait until the last minute as others will certainly do. This will cause a steep demand and there could be a shortage of ELDs before the mandate begins. You don’t want to be out of service waiting on a back-ordered ELD to be shipped to you.