Trucking Compliance Blog

Samsara ELD Compliance: A Practical Guide for Carriers

Samsara is one of the most widely used ELD platforms in North American trucking, and many of the fleets we work with run it. Here is the part that surprises carriers: installing the device is the easy step. An ELD records hours automatically, but it does not manage compliance for you, and most of the hours of service problems that surface in audits happen after the device has done its job perfectly. This guide walks through what your Samsara ELD handles on its own, what stays your responsibility, and the mistakes we see most often when we review fleets that thought the device had them covered.

A quick note before we start. Compliance Mentorz is an independent safety and compliance consultancy. We are not affiliated with or endorsed by Samsara. Our compliance solutions do integrate with Samsara and other ELD platforms through their APIs, which means we work with data from these systems every day. This guide is for carriers who run a Samsara ELD, or any certified device, and want their records to hold up under review.

What the device does, and what it does not do

A certified ELD connects to the engine and records driving time, duty status changes, location, and distance automatically. It flags certain issues, keeps a tamper resistant record, and can transfer data to an officer at roadside. All of that is real value.

What no ELD does: it does not assign unassigned driving time, it does not write the annotations that explain an edit, it does not train your drivers, and it does not answer an auditor's questions. Those jobs belong to people, and they are exactly where compliance breaks down.

The compliance tasks that stay yours

Review logs on a schedule. The single strongest habit is a weekly log review by someone in the office who knows what to look for. Violations caught weekly are coaching conversations. Violations found in an audit are points against your record.

Clear unassigned driving time. When a truck moves and no driver is logged in, the system records unassigned driving time, and it accumulates quietly. Every unassigned segment needs to be assigned to the right driver or annotated with a reason, such as a mechanic moving the truck in the yard. Enforcement officers and auditors look at unassigned time specifically, because it is where hidden driving lives.

Handle edits properly. Electronic logs can be corrected, but the original record is always retained, and every edit needs an annotation that explains it, with the driver certifying the change. An edit trail full of unexplained changes reads badly in an audit even when each change was innocent.

Watch personal conveyance and yard moves. These special driving categories are legitimate, and they are also one of the most common areas of misuse. A driver who uses personal conveyance to extend a work day is creating a violation the device will faithfully record. Set a written policy on when these statuses are allowed, train drivers on it, and check the usage reports.

Know the malfunction procedure. When the device malfunctions, drivers must switch to paper logs and the carrier must get the device repaired within the window the rules allow. Keep blank paper logs in every truck and make sure drivers know the drill, because a malfunction with no paper backup is a violation on top of a malfunction.

Keep the records. Hours of service records and supporting documents must be retained for at least six months, and they need to be retrievable when an auditor asks. The data sitting in the platform is only useful if someone can produce it.

Canadian carriers: check the certification

Canada handles ELD approval differently from the United States. American rules let providers self-certify their devices. Canadian rules require every device to be tested and certified by an accredited third party, and only devices on Transport Canada's certified list are legal for federally regulated carriers. A device that is compliant in the United States is not automatically compliant in Canada.

The practical takeaway: confirm that the specific model and software version your fleet runs appears on Transport Canada's certified ELD list, and recheck periodically, because certification is tied to the version, not the brand. This applies whichever platform you use.

How your ELD data shows up in an audit

In an MTO facility audit or a DOT review, hours of service records are always on the table, and with an ELD the auditor sees everything: violations, unassigned time, the edit history, and the annotations. Clean, well managed ELD data makes that part of the audit fast. Months of unassigned driving and unexplained edits do the opposite, and roadside hours of service violations feed your CVOR record all year long, audit or no audit.

The mistakes we see most often

After reviewing many fleets, the same problems come up again and again: assuming the device manages compliance by itself, ignoring the alerts the platform raises, letting unassigned hours pile up for months, drivers using personal conveyance as extra driving time, and no single person in the office owning the log review. None of these are device problems. All of them are fixable with a routine and a bit of training.

Making the system actually work

The fix is not complicated. Put one trained person in charge of a weekly log audit, clear unassigned time as it appears, set and enforce a personal conveyance policy, and test yourself once a year with a mock audit so the first hard look at your logs is not the real one. If your team needs the skills, our log book audit and ELD training builds them on the exact platform you run.

If your logs are already a mess, or you simply want to know where you stand, contact us or call (905) 486-1666. Our systems integrate directly with Samsara and other ELD platforms through their APIs, so we can review your actual records and give you an honest read.