ELD Are there any silver linings

This is where learning how and when to use the split sleeper provision would benefit you. If you'd logged 8 hours in the sleeper prior to taking that 2 hours off, you might have started off with a full 11/14 again.

ELDs force you to plan ahead, plan better, and make you say NO to those stressful load schedules that cause you to take risks in order to make the delivery appointment.

Now you can also tell the broker / shipper / receiver that THEY need to plan better or get you out the door in a timely manner. Before the ELD mandate, they expected the driver to fix any delays by 'fudging' the log. After the mandate, they can't do that, and you can call them on it.

I've learned how to make the ELD work for me. You can too.

 

I would really LOVE to know just how many Shippers/ brokers you have told to get you out the door faster and it worked? or at least worked with the load actually in your trailer. I mean seriously, what world do you work in that any shipper gives a darn about a driver or even understands the rules that we work with? The guys on the docks don't give a darn about us and never will. Yeah we hold the power - as a group, but you will never get us to function as a group, so the shippers/ brokers will always win and if its not them then the big companies that are cutting all their runs into shorter hops to keep the drivers legal yet cutting the miles to each driver by doing so. yeah we will win, and i will be seeing pigs fly soon too.
Yes i will learn how to make the ELD work, but it WILL cut into my ability to make money. Money i could make WITHOUT being illegal, tired, or any sort of Cowboy. Money i could make driving a very comfortable way while avoiding traffic, avoiding having to drive 7 hrs stretches and then take that 30 min break and then drive another 4 hrs straight so i can squeeze in 11 hrs straight before the ELD says im out of time when i could have taken a nice break, rested in between,.
and as to your idea of splitting my sleeper, yeah great idea except when it pushes me over my 14 hr limit, so much for splitting the sleeper then. Not to mention - IF you split the sleeper you don't get a FULL 11/14- You should Know that. You only pick up the back half of the 11hrs of drive time you have recovered, not a full 11 hours. So your idea wouldnt work at all.
And on top of all of this, i bobtail a lot from one area to another. thank god for personal time on the ELD

 

If you Bobtail while under "Load" meaning you are going from one location to another to pick up the load assigned then PC is being used incorrectly.

 

As for shippers and recievers making it difficult: the company i am with went full eld a year ago at first it was only new hires for a couple years, but last summer we all had to switch. From my conversations with agents, there was initial resistance from customers(direct and brokers) when a guy on elogs needed a delivery rescheduled due to being held up getting loaded or a bad traffic jam. They would respond with something like "well the last guy made it, this one just doesnt want to." That led to us all having to switch, and those customers have changed they're attitude about trying to push guys to break hos. They have adapted. In some cases that had resulted in no more big delays getting loaded.

As @windsmith said, you will have to plan your day better and that might take a couple weeks to get used to, but after that initial adjusting period it won't effect you. The ones that are gonna be hit hard by elogs are those that are operating one razor thin margins that causes them to have to run over hours just to generate enough revenue to stay in business. And to be honest, my opinion of that is the sooner they go out of business the better.

 

Here is another perfect example of how ELDs are going to now cost me more money -
As an OO tolls are my problem, so when i can i prefer to take a non toll road which may be 60-90 mins longer. Normally i would log the trip the straight way - ok maybe grey area by some but none the less. Now to keep the Elog from running out on me i HAVE to take the shortest route which in a lot of cases means im paying those tolls. So now in order to stay 100% by the book its costing me more $$$.
And i didn't hear anyone comment on the nice leisure 15.5 hr day I would have been able to do that i now am FORCED to run in a 14 hrs and run it the way Big Brother - some dimwit behind a desk- wants me to run it.
Which way do you think burns me out faster? Most of what i am hearing here so far sounds more like local guys that get home each night. Yeah for that the Elog will never be an issue. but for the ones that run OTR and need the full 70 and the 34 restart and wish to avoid tolls now and then, yeah the Elogs ARE going to be a pain and are going to COST us $$

 

So the ELD will now make you legal? You should be running legal anyway... if you have 15.5 hr days, then your 1.5 hours over either on paper or ELD. Get in an accident on that 15th hour and see how much your logs will fail you...

You are not "FORCED" to have a 14 hour day by ELD's... this is the regulations in place now even if you are on paper....

 

Not for nothing - but your a tech, not a driver. So yeah your right the RULES on paper say one thing, but the real world dictates another. Even DOT goes by miles from PC miler or Rand McNally. So if the trip is 600 miles its supposed to take me 10 hrs on my log. but if i decided to take a cheaper/scenic route and it takes me 12 hrs, DOT is still looking it as a 10 hr trip. Before they didn't know which way i went. Now they do.

So Now i am FORCED to go the more expensive - More Direct Route and pay the tolls, run with traffic, run my either lifestyle around a set of rules that were set by someone that drives a desk for a living and has absolutely no idea what it is like to go from Point to B to C to D to E all week long with a schedule, traffic, accident, weather, construction, shipper/receiver delays. Etc. Bottom line So far as i have seen not only does the New sleeper berth rules but also this ELD mandate is not going to make the system safer. Instead its putting more burden on small business - the Owner Op - 1 truck, 2 truck guy that is just make a living and do it safely but without the government telling him how he is supposed to do it.

and i am still wanting to know if there are any ELDs out there that i can UNPLUG when i am on Personal time????

 

Cant you just log out?
It'll still record sure, but if you're legitimately not doing anything that would need to be using hos rules where's the problem?
Thats my plan anyway.

 

From my understanding there is no such thing as "logging out". its always on. So i would have to just log it as Personal time. BUT the ELD doesn't know what im doing, so its going to keep changing from drivings to on duty back to driving on so on, and then i have to go back and fix it. Plus and here is my big hang up, Im on vacation, the ELD is also recording my GPS locations. now im not a a government nut, but darn it, i don't want Big Brother knowing where i have been when. Plus less face it, in this day and age, everything is used against US. so if im driving around with my 5th wheel and i just drove home say 1500 miles from vacation on Saturday, which i can do any way i like because im on personal time, and i then head out to "Work" Monday AM and something major happens that Monday. Don't think for a second that the lawyers are not going to try and get and then use the GPS logs and times off my ELD against me in some way.
so No i don't want any darn record of anything when im on Personal time. I should be able to UNPLUG the ELD so its not recording anything from the ECM or anything else.
Im sorry, but this is an invasion of my privacy. its my personal time and No one has the right to know anything about it.
Does any ELD off this option ?????