The Dreaded Electronic Logs

I have been on EOBR's for a year now (Peoplenet). It took me all of a week to get use to it. Now a year later I have totally learned a better way of "Time Management". My company has fine tuned our system to allow for automatic updates if you forget to log on, show a duty status change or to forget to ad any entry. I have been asked for my log book in about a dozen states including Missouri and California, and when I told them I was on E-Logs I was told to go on. I have also been told a number of times that because of my sticker on my door saying I'm on E-Logs that when seen by D.O.T. more times then not I would be flagged through. My take on this? Great! Hot load? Not in the last year. Run legal? Every load I've done since going on this system. My opinion about this? Easy, what took the industry so long? After 27 years of driving I now am able to make a decent living and not worry about my log book. For those that say big brother is watching you, how about this response, I have nothing to hide and being in the transportation field I accept the fact that I have a great deal of responsibility every time I move my truck. After 27 years of no accidents, no incidents and 2 speeding tickets, there's nothing the government can do in the name of safety that I haven't already done.

 

I don't mind getting an in-house warning from time to time. In this situation, I would take the reprimand or whatever punishment and go home.

As long it doesn't happen all the time, I wouldn't mind getting "in trouble" for breaking the electronic protocol here.

 

I have done that a few times. I just couldn't get my wife to understand why I needed to take a 10 hour break 80 miles from the house. It was alot less stressfull getting the in-house log violation than listening to her for 10 hours.

 

Yep, I was just sayin' because I am still on the old system. But good to hear you can do that.

 

Peoplenet is actually the one that FMCSA and DOT are pushing to mandate. Go figure.

 

Used peoplenet for four years at a previous employer. Bad thing is they locked us out of editing after a couple years. Nothing worse than arriving 0 dark thirty Saturday morning and realizing you forgot to log out Friday Afternoon (and the log person is at home in bed).

 

What the FMCSA is looking at and what congress is looking to mandate are 2 different things.
Neather is actually looking at a system that is currently made. But both are looking at systems that the current ones can be made into.

A few changes include, a method of wireless transmission to the scale house, and making sure all have a USB 2 type connector.
Making them so that no changes can be made in the truck to duty status after the time has passed.
They must have a line graph showing the grid that would be on paper.

 

As a local/regional driver, we did an experiment with e-logs a few months back. Can't stand them, sure they make things easy, but at the same time, since it's hard wired (this was a temporary plug-in to the ECM), it automatically started to log driving time when I went over 15 mph. That's great, except, I spent three 14 hr days in the city, according to the e-log, I drove 8.25 hrs out of 14, when in reality, I drove maybe 5 hrs. It was showing time I spent on the ramp at the railroad searching for containers as driving time (line 3) and since I couldn't edit it, it made for a some real problems. I also ran a paper log and they were night/day different from each other.

 

Which will allow Congress and the ATA to finally get illegals behind the wheel as a path to citizenship and fix the driver "shortage" once and for all.

Look for rates and wages to fall by about 50% across-the-board when this happens.

Trucking will end up being like landscaping, food service, construction, meat packing, warehousing, and other service-industry jobs that are now overrun by illegals.

If you want to stay in this biz, you will have to learn Spanish and be willing to work for much less.

 

Combine That with the increasingly stricter medical card procedures and overall dissatisfaction with this crraappy job in general, you are Exactly right!!!

But after all, that is precisely what the ATA and your friendly neighborhood megacarrier wanted to have happen anyway!!!

If you think trucking sucks now, just wait a few more years.
You haven't seen the half of it yet!!!