Trucking Laws · Illinois · November 14, 2026

Zach Meiborg Talks ELD Tampering on The Dooner Show, Recorded Just Before FMCSA Revoked 133 ELDs

By Big Rig Daily Staff

Zach Meiborg, the Illinois fleet owner who says he brought a log-tampering ELD to state police and federal regulators, laid out his case in a long interview on The Dooner Show, hosted by Tim Dooner. The episode came out Friday, Nov. 13, 2026. Meiborg's remarks in the episode indicate it was recorded before the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced on Nov. 12 that it had pulled 133 electronic logging devices from its list of registered devices. In the interview, Meiborg says he was still waiting to hear what the agency would do.

What an ELD is

An electronic logging device, or ELD, is a small unit or tablet in a truck that records how long the driver has been behind the wheel and on duty. Federal rules limit those hours so drivers get rest. Under 49 CFR 395.3, a truck driver hauling freight may drive up to 11 hours within a 14-hour window after 10 hours off duty, with a limit of 60 hours on duty in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days. If a log can be changed after the fact, those limits are easy to get around. The guide to ELD and hours-of-service rules explains the basics.

Watch the interview

The episode is titled "The Great ELD Fraud: One Million Compromised Trucks" and runs about an hour. The title is the show's own wording, and the one million figure is Meiborg's estimate, not an official count.

Watch on YouTube: The Great ELD Fraud: One Million Compromised Trucks, The Dooner Show

Interview by Tim Dooner on The Dooner Show. Big Rig Daily did not produce the interview.

Recorded before the revocations

Meiborg tells Dooner that FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs promised "a major announcement" on electronic logbook fraud during the week of Nov. 11. "We're waiting to hear," Meiborg says in the episode. The announcement came on Thursday, Nov. 12, before the episode was released.

How Meiborg says it started

Meiborg says that about six months ago he signed up for an ELD from a provider he says he knew was not legitimate, and that "we just put it in a truck to tamper with it." Describing what he later showed federal officials, he says a driver would "pick phone up, say I'm out of hours, I need some help," and after a reset, "you get hours."

Meiborg says he wanted to bring the device to officials in Washington, and that "for 6 months we got ignored." He says he then showed it to the Illinois State Police, and "all of a sudden there was a lot of interest." He says FMCSA called the following week, and that he then "showcased it for the FMCSA."

On Oct. 28, at the DeKalb police station, a Meiborg driver had his hours reset by phone in about 10 minutes as Illinois State Police officers and an FMCSA investigator watched, CCJ reported. Big Rig Daily has not confirmed which ELD provider was used in that demonstration. Big Rig Daily covered it in the story on the Illinois phone-call reset demonstration.

These are Meiborg's accounts. Big Rig Daily has not independently confirmed them.

His 1 in 4 estimate

Meiborg says that "one in four trucks going down the road are tampering with their log books." That is his own estimate. He did not cite a study for it in the interview, and it is not an FMCSA or Department of Transportation figure.

What he wants changed

Meiborg says the fixes he wants are:

• An emergency change to the hours-of-service rules to 14 hours on duty and 10 hours off, with no 70-hour cap and no 34-hour restart.
• An end to the system in which ELD makers certify their own devices, which he says should start with decertifying every ELD.
• Police checking logs against toll records, fuel receipts, bills of lading and road cameras, rather than trusting what the device shows.
• A $10,000 charge to get a DOT number, which he says would make it harder for chameleon carriers, companies that shut down and reopen under a new name to escape their records.
• A 30-day impound of the truck, trailer and cargo, plus jail for the driver, when someone is caught tampering with an ELD.

These are his proposals. None of them is a current rule or a proposal from FMCSA. Other ideas about changing hours-of-service rules are covered in the story on the hours-of-service pilot proposals debate.

What FMCSA announced on Nov. 12

The facts in this section come from the U.S. Department of Transportation and FMCSA, not from the interview.

• On Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026, the U.S. Department of Transportation said FMCSA pulled 133 ELDs from its Registered Devices List. The department called it "the largest ELD revocation in FMCSA history."
• The 133 are 121 devices revoked by the agency and 12 voluntary self-revocations by their makers, according to the department.
• FMCSA's own list of revoked ELDs shows 121 devices marked revoked on Nov. 12, 2026.
• The release says carriers have up to 60 days to replace a revoked device. It also tells inspectors that a driver using a revoked device on or after Nov. 24, 2026, should be cited and placed out of service.
• The department did not name the companies in the three fraud examples it gave, saying the cases were anonymized to avoid compromising ongoing investigations.

The release gives both the up-to-60-day replacement window and the Nov. 24, 2026, out-of-service date without explaining how the two fit together, as The Trucker and CDLWire also noted. The full story on FMCSA revoking 133 electronic logging devices covers both dates and what carriers can check now.

Quick facts

• Guest: Zach Meiborg, who runs the Meiborg Companies in Rockford, Illinois.
• Show: The Dooner Show, hosted by Tim Dooner, released Nov. 13, 2026.
• Recorded: before FMCSA's Nov. 12, 2026, announcement, according to Meiborg's own remarks in the episode.
• His estimate: 1 in 4 trucks tamper with their logs. It is not official data.
• FMCSA action: 133 ELDs removed, 121 revoked by the agency and 12 by their makers, according to DOT.

FAQ

What is an ELD?

An electronic logging device records a truck driver's driving and on-duty time so inspectors can check it against federal hours-of-service limits.

Was the interview recorded before or after the 133 ELDs were revoked?

Before. In the episode, Meiborg says FMCSA promised an announcement that week and that he was still waiting to hear. FMCSA's announcement came on Nov. 12, 2026, and the episode came out Nov. 13.

Is the 1 in 4 figure official?

No. It is Meiborg's own estimate. FMCSA and the Department of Transportation have not published that number.

How many ELDs did FMCSA revoke?

The Department of Transportation says 133: 121 revoked by FMCSA and 12 withdrawn by their makers. FMCSA's revoked list shows the 121 agency revocations dated Nov. 12, 2026.

A question for readers

Should ELD makers keep certifying their own devices, or should someone else test them first?

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