Family awarded $14 million because truck not equipped with e-log.

That is why I have been logging as if I am on elogs for the past 2 or more years. The extra $200-$300 a week you could potentially make by doing the fly by night cowboy thing is not worth it in my book. At the end of the day/week/whatever your body will just be more shot and fatigued.

Toll receipts and fuel receipts, lumpers, etc, anything we turn in that we want to get reimbursed for, as well as times on BOLs, have to match on the nose where I work. Any company who doesn't do it this way or stricter todays is setting themselves up at best for huge DOT fines, and at worst a Tracy Morgan style mess. Sure i can still cheat like a cowboy if i want to, risk far outweighs reward though.

About computer modules, you are right. Some tracking ones too. If you buy or lease a truck, the company you bought it from isn't going to just give you a $150,000 piece of equipment that you haven't come close to paying off, and let you run all over the country with it unchecked. If you miss your payments, they will find you. The ECUs and ECMS on the truck will be able to at least document at what time a truck was driving.

 

It doesn't matter if YOU buy it or not, the lawyers and insurance companies have already PAID for it and SOLD it. LOL

 

Well we now know what it's gonna cost us boys. $14 million dollars if we hit a motorcyclist with paper logs. I guess when both parties do something retarted the truck drivers test he blame.

 

I run legal and i'm on paper, its just not worth pushing it anymore, I never use my full 70 and rarley hit the 11 hour driving day. The bad part is i dont see how the elog or the paper makes any diffrence on how a driver operates the truck safely. To many times elogs or not some fleet manger/broker ect pushes that driver and truck over the limits. The bad thing with this whole thing is the LAWYERS have figured that this industry is a CASH COW for them, just look at all the bill boards and TV ads, you figure they make 35% minimum plus other charges off every settlement and most of them never go to court, just letter back and forth written by a legal assitant

 

Or just don't pull out in front of motorcycles

 

No amount of regulation and/or laws will prevent an accident from happening...nor can it ever make anyone get rest...until the clueless mindless so called advocates change their mindset....nothing will change for better, only worse...

 

Logs are logs.
They exist in their own reality, as in the case of the Walmart driver who hit Tracy Morgan's van -- his logs had NOTHING to do with that driver's actual physical condition at the time of the accident even if his logs were, "legal." Anybody can be exhausted and have not slept for three days or been running recap hours for 30 days and be mentally exhausted and still log it legal.

The world depicted by driver's logs is notional and fictional when it comes to collisions with hard and soft objects. At the moment of impact, they become legal evidence to be checked against whatever version of reality the magnitude of the collision merits. Of course, there are who drivers treat them as creative diagramming workbooks up to that moment.

I can claim I only drove four hours a day for the past sixty days and it won't affect the realty of my physical/mental condition at any given time. But it'll be legal.

 

Holy smoking loose sleeves log books man!

 

And don't forget the GPS units that everybody loves to run now.

"They knows if you've been sleeping, they knows if you're awake, they knows if you've been bad or good..."

 

The other side to that coin as well the ELOGS limit the liabilty of the company and regaurdless of what the driver was told it still lets the BIGBOX company feed the driver/operator to the wolves, (the we never told him to break the law comment, it was his dissision). How many times have we all had off days where we are suffering from I dont feel like it, or not a good nights sleep, just an hour more with the family before I leave. The elogs dont allow you nthe freedom to stop and take that extra nap or just kick back for a bit longer you are always fighting that clock.
The bottm line of it all when it comes to accident prevention is TRAINING, This 90day wonder wheel hold stuff is for the birds! That and theses companies have to be held accountable for there decissions, the drive/operator of that semi is ultimatley incharge and he and he alone decides when conditions are good enough to drive and when he is tired or sick!

Just a note I use (HE) as a general term not to offend the many female operators out there