Beware of Landstar Sky Bitz and E-Log Mandate

Old enough to have heard Dr. King's speech "live," and to have worried about an all-expense paid vacation to the Mekong Delta. While I do deal with Ms Elogs, I have quite a bit more "freedom" than many... mostly because my dispatcher knows that once I have accepted a load he won't be hearing from me (99.9% of the time) until it's safely delivered. No need for micro-managing, as my carrier actively discourages the practice as well. If that changes, you can color me gone too.

 

This is Landstar corporate bull crap. 1 hour is a load of BS.

And that is what's legal under federal regulations.

Corporate bull crap. You should be able to drop a loaded trailer and bobtail to the home 20.

That is true. It's illegal to use off-duty driving for a business-related purpose under federal regulations.

It certainly feels that way at times, doesn't it? I spent 20 years in an engineering career that was quite rewarding in many ways, but one observation: If you really want to feel like you're in prison, try cube hell. I parolled myself to trucking, and even with all of this federal crap that's landing on us, it's a much better situation than the ol' 8-to-5 straightjacket.

 

You are correct Charli Girl and now for those of us who mostly do logistics work it looks like the time is near to move again.....E-Logs cannot work for us, even LS corporate acknowledges this.....I will be joining 8891 soon. I am in the process of contacting my agent base and discussing the situation with them as to see who will still load me as an outside carrier. No doubt someone will want to work with a 10 year vet who has never been placed OOS and has a total of 3 CSA points that will come off in Nov. this year.....evidently I'm just not good enough for Landstar any longer.

FYI, a few years ago when LS started on this E-Log push they never even informed the agents this was the direction they were taking.....instead they started hammering them to broker out more freight. LS in now brokering out over 40% of their freight.....the future here is as an independent carrier, not as a BCO.

 

WHY IS EVERYONE SO ANGRY???
Im not a big fan of EOBRs they don't work real well for heavy haul.
The cost is the other sticking point for me, 30.00 month to be monitored out of my pocket is insane to say the least! They tell you its your choice but if you don't get it you don't work! Last time I checked if you mandate something in order to work you ( ie the company has to absorb the cost)/ Ive been checking around the cost varies company to company but the fees are from anywhere from 5.00 to 40.00 a month depending on what kind of deal the company has worked out with the supplier. ( quail com pretty much has the market cornered )
The bottom line though is LANDSTAR NEEDS TO LOOK AT IT SELF! They need to figure out what direction they want to go, right now there are a lot of agents and Bcos that aren't real happy with whats going on and the Chrystal palace isn't listening. They need to figure if they are/ want to be freight fowarders/brokers and get out of rolling stock or get back into trucking or split the company. They have gotton and forgot where there roots are and what made LandStar the premiere company to work/lease to. To many suits upstairs running the place that think they have the bull by the balls and it doesn't matter what happens to us or the employees at the office.
As far as how far you can drive the truck, I don't know how they came up with the 1 hour rule but that's BS! The DOT Green book has a section in it and Ill need to find the reg but it is USE OF A COMMERCIAL VEHICALE FOR PERSONAL CONVEYANCE and there is no time limit on it!
As far as your own authority, you can keep it my family has had there own authority for years, and I want no part of it! The DOT loves to screw with little haulers and the records and book keeping BITS!
END RANT!

 

An excellent observation Sir, and I agree with all you say except the part about going on your own. I know too many ex lease operators who have done so, most of them ex LS guys and every one of them is doing better, far better on their own and all of them say the paperwork is no big deal as long as you follow the guidelines and keep everything up to date. I do believe that one fellow who notes that if you can run the LS system and make money then you are certainly smart enough to be an independent, the main drawback I see for most people is not having a decent bankroll to get started, but you really need that to start at LS as well. I mean you should IMO. 10-15k emergency fund should be plenty to get going as long as your truck is in good shape.

 

The other issue is if LS is going to "require" you to run an Elog system as a condition of signing on then they should be paying 100% of the cost including the monthly monitoring fee. Think of how many jobs this eliminates in the log and compliance depts. as well as lowering their cost of liability the more trucks they get running these things. We all know your revenue will drop having to run an EOBR unless like me you just don't work that hard anymore but most guys will see a drop. Have they even considered a revenue adjustment to the BCO's who run them......answer, Hell No!! So LS lowers their operating costs all the while increasing the cost to the BCO.....that's a darn good deal for LS......they improve their bottom line reduce their liability and you pay for it.......nope, not me, sorry......I make them plenty of money safely hauling freight, I draw the line at being nickel and dimed and then being told I have to pay for the pleasure of working here........nope, not me, never........I will be ready to move if and when I ever get the call!!

 

You can bet that Landstar is making money from the company where they are getting the EOBR's. For those carriers who are requiring the EOBR's, all of them that I have spoken with require that you use their EOBR. My question would be why can't I find my own EOBR and then print off a hard copy to send to the carrier, if I am leased to them? If they require EOBR's and then also require you use a specific company or unit, then are you still considered independent or an employee? I am surprised that OOIDA or some owner operators have not challenged this in court. EOBR's may be required by the feds at some point, but that does not give each carrier whom owner operators lease on to the right to require a specific EOBR. The mandate only requires that drivers have them. As far as I know, there has never been a mandate that requires all of them to be purchased from a certain company or to be compatible with the carrier's software. I think one primary reason the major carriers have pushed so hard to force these on everyone is to reduce their compliance costs. If they can shift the costs to the owner operator, then they can save millions of dollars annually as a group. It primarily harms the smaller carriers. If the costs of purchasing, installation and monthly fees are transferred back to the carriers then you would most likely see much less interest in installing them.

 

I've talked to several carriers that "require"them BUT they pay for installation AND there are no monthly fees,nor is there a fee to "uninstall". They had it in writing too. So I suppose you're right,L.S. must be getting some sort of "kick back" . Also I'm seeing a lot of L.S. trucks around that are just heaps,raggedy,fenders falling off,just old tired heaps! What's up with that? I haven't seen ONE nice truck around lately. Years ago you would always see nice well maintained trucks. When I got inspected a few weeks ago,the D.O.T guy said he gets a lot of L.S. trucks thru there and are ALWAYS failing.
"Something" must be going on over there,seems they have lacked in management somewhere down the line. It used to be an "elite" team,kinda comparable to Van Line Operators.