EOBR Electronic Logs - Good or Bad

I never thought I'd like paper-less logs untill I learned more about them and started using them. No more figuring hours and no more drawing lines. I know how many miles I drive everyday, how many hours I gain at midnight and so on and so on. Oh and no more scanning them along with my trip packs, either. At the end of every day, I double check everything to make sure everything's right and I hit the "approve" button and they're gone.... Another good thing, if a DOT officer asks to see your logs and you tell him/her that you run paperless, 9 times outta 10, they say, "nevermind!".....

The only thing i dont like about'em is when you're gettin low on time near the end of the day, you better start lookin for a place to park early when you get to like an hour left because you cant fudge your time if you have to keep drivin to find a place to shut down for the night but if you do like what i did when i had to go about a month by my self when my wife was on medical hometime, when i got to within an hour to hour and a half to the end of my shift, I started lookin for a place to shut it down for nite incase I was in an area that had limited parking options. But all in all, I'll take paperless logs over the paper log book any day. You just have to treat'em with respect since even though you have the power to change off-duty time, on-duty not driving time and sleeper berth, on-duty driving is the only thing you cant change. If you drove it, its gonna log it and it dont care what your excuse is.

 

Adam, sounds like your company load planners and fleet managers know how to deal with the E log. The company I drive for does not.

 

You make a good point, however I actually begin my pretrip while still off-duty. I spend about 15 minutes doing a pre-trip, and when I close the hood is when I put myself on duty to finish the rest of my pre trip. Somedays I might be on duty for 15 minutes doing my pre trip, but my company's safety department requires us to log a minimum of 5 minutes. I guess my point was just that it's nice to be able to save 20 minutes on your 14hr clock on the days that you know you're going to need them.

 

To be honest, they are still learning, as are the drivers. So far I haven't run into a situation where I couldn't legally deliver or pickup on time. I don't expect that to always be the case though.

 

The point remains, though, you'll quite possibly need to explain to a DOT cop one day how you did a 5 min. pretrip. GO ahead and tell him, "Oh, simple, well I just work a little bit every day and don't log it. That way, I can work longer on the books."

Put yourself on duty when you GO ON DUTY. Why is it that people want to cheat, even if it's just a little? Are you working for so little that a few illegal minutes is that big of a deal?

I'm sick of all this "I show myself" and "you have to show" crap. Log what you do. Do it right. Do it legal. If we'd do this, we wouldn't have things like EOBR's and CSA 2010.

As for EOBR's...I'd like to have one in my tractor because I dislike paperwork, BUT I #### sure don't like the government telling me I HAVE to have one. Actually a logbook program on my laptop is my preference.

 

if you do everything legal!!! you would be parked on the side of the road for 10 hours...running four hundred miles a day if you actually always log legal!!you would drive tired if you did what the rules say you should do!!I could go on and on..I drive truck to drive truck not sit around waiting for some piece of paper or electronic log to tell me when im tired or not!!

 

Uhhhhh....nope. I regularly run well over 500 miles daily and have plenty of time left over and feel good when I stop for the day. Oh, I drive slow, too. I run legal, and true, I probably run fewer miles than lots of guys. Guess what? Charge more for the miles you run. Charge for being held at a shipper/reciever. Do what you have to do to get compensated so that you can run legal. How hard is this to understand?

Follow the rules or don't follow 'em. Your choice. But, the fact remains that one day, you'll still likely have to explain. Me? Well, I'd like carry a six pack of cold beer in the fridge in my truck, too. Hell, I don't need the DOT telling me I'm not responsible enough to drink one or two beers on my ten hour break. I'll bet lots of state troopers pop the top on a cold one when they sit down to supper after a long hard day of writing speeding tickets while speeding to each hiding spot to run radar. I am resposnsible enough to have a beer and not drive drunk. There are lots of rules I don't particular agree with, but follow them.

Those are the rules, though. I'm sure you are responsible enough, as I'm sure are many drivers, to not drive while fatigued. But you know, and I know, that there are those that will PUSH drivers to go farther than they need to. There are those who will go too far on their own for a host of reasons. We have the rules for a reason. Follow them, or don't follow them. The problem isn't the rules, it's not being paid enough for the hours you can work.

I found out a long time ago...run legal, make more money. That's the goal. Figure out how. That's our job.

 

I meant CR England, not the country.

As for the logs. They're there to protect the driver from the company. It took me a whiel to see it that way. But if you bend the rules to make the company happy, you really have no recourse when you put your foot down.

I don't drive tired. Never did with paper. Never did with EOBRs. But, if the HOS weren't there, companies would be forcing their drivers to run tired to try and get loads delivered in tighter and tighter timeframes.

 

Charge more for the miles you drive? Charge detention? Really? Does that actually work for you?
The reason DOT keeps passing these retarded laws is because too many people have the roll over and take it attitude. Or the guys who say "Well these rules are in place to keep everyone safe" if you really believe that you are nuts. They are in place because they can use them to make money off the people who actually do the work. I make substantially more money by running over hours. I also get home more because im getting further in a day. they can pass all the laws they want, I make good money to break em. when they find a way to stop me from outsmarting them, I will stop driving. in the meantime, a few tickets now and then is the cost of doing business.

 

Well it works for me. I long ago figured out you need to do what most can't or won't. If your pulling some ones dry box down the road all you will ever do is just get by. SPECIALIZE.