When I was at orientation at TMC, one of the classroom instructors made a good point of this. He stated that he kept his logbook very neat. His story went something like this: He was pulled into the scalehouse, and the D.O.T. man looked over his neat logboog, and let him go. The funny thing is that his last entry was 3 hours earlier in Virginia. He got stopped in Florida!

The same has happened to me as I keep a very neat logbook (in fact, I have been complimented on it on a few occasions).

You have also illustrated a very important principle; that regulators (LEO, scalemaster, DOT, etc.) are just ordinary people and they are just as inclined to want their job to be easy as you or I would. They want maximum results for the minimum input required.

When they see a logbook that is neat and organised, and doesn't have any glaring problems, they know (or highly suspect, even if only subconsciously) that the likelyhood of finding any violations is small (and they'll have to thoroughly examine each page and entry) compared to Billy Bigrigger beside you, whose logbook looks like a dog's breakfast. The chances are much greater that Billy (who has used an entire bottle of whiteout on one page, correcting mistakes) is going to have some kind of problem. Or they'll suspect that he doesn't really know what he's doing -- based solely on visual clues (yet another reason to appear and act professional).

I employed the same principle to help clients (I had a financial planning practise) breeze through tax audits. By simply having all required documentation presented in an orderly fashion, several client's audits were simply dropped after an initial examination; it was deemed that the likelyhood of levelling penalties was significantly lower than the person that brought in a shoebox full of receipts ... and don't kid yourself, that's what the game is all about.

good job on this

so, i've been looking at some software and my question is this. are they legal to use for inspections???? i myself am a very sloppy writer and see a couple of programs i am liking very much. they are very easy to understand, explains everything in the open so you know where you stand. does web backups in case your computer crashes, and your not saving to a file somewhere. they will fax the information to your company, and they can do printouts for dot man. and they even have gps locator function for you in case your like me and don't pay attention to where your at sometimes. i know some of you companies have qcom logging but are you required to do the books still???

i'm looking to get back into the game here. last time i was out. software wasn't invented and swift was the only one doing paperless.

Yeah, they're legal to use, although your company may not accept them... that's a company policy thing. If DOT pulls you in, you have to have the last eight days available for inspection, so you need a printer. If you are working for a company that's doing paperless logging, you don't need to have a pen and paper log book. Same deal... somehow or another, you or your company needs to be able to download or fax the last eight days to the DOT guy.

And... only the companies with a really crappy history are required to do electronic logging at this point.

one of the software i'm looking at says they have every paper profile available and if not. obtain one from the company and they will make the arrangements. i guess that means when you fax. it goes through there server into what form the company uses and that's what gets faxed to the company. (i guess that how it works)

i don't know who i'll end up working for. i'm just trying to find anyone that will put me back out there. and that ain't looking easy. only one i've had that will give me the time of day so far is swift. due to being MIA for awhle and not being a newbie. my options aren't that great.

Again, it depends... don't know anyone that has you fax trip reports in. Some companies want the hardcopy sent to them in a TripPak envelope. Ours has us send them electronically via Transflow or TripPak terminals. You can always transcribe the things to pen and paper format...

IMO, looseleaf log sheets are a truckers best friend, for more than one reason...

I agree about the loose leaf. I never had any log book violations. No matter how many pages it took by the end of the day the final one was always correct and legal.

That's the problem with elogging... you only get one shot at it. Gonna be difficult for the newbs unless they've got a short learning curve...

Elogging might be good sometimes, but to me its a joke. I understand the concept of it, but give me back my looseleaf and leave me along. No violations with looseleaf, far to many with elogs.