Few Questions

Which device do you have? And as far as doing things in the yard and bobtailing, that will depend on how the company set up your unit. When I start my truck in the morning, the unit comes on and stays in the sleeper berth. Nothing happens until I get over 15 mph, it keeps me in the sleeper, and thank God for that. One trick I did learn, was every time you stop for any period of time, I go directly to the sleeper. When it hits 30 mins, it bumps that stupid milk and cookie break forward 8 hours. That is about the only good thing I can say about the Omnitracs unit I have.

 

In the thirty years I’ve been around trucking I see one thing hasn’t changed. Companies will invest in equipment but refuse to invest in training.

 

I would guess the event was you hitting the kingpin... Most of these units have a shock sensor on them. I am not familiar with your particular unit, but I know mine will record certain events if there is any bumps or force applied to the truck. I am sure there is a sensitivity setting that can be adjusted so that it does not record an event when hooking to the trailer.

 

I read several months ago with the new standards now in effect:
Even though you stayed under five mph, the gps still detected that the truck is now in a different location and you didn’t tell it before hand that you were on duty, yard move or personal conveyance. But it still has registered the move, so either you moved it or a mechanic moved it. So either you tried to cheat or you forgot to log out and the mechanic did it. Either way your now screwed. Blame the company for their great training program.
One fellow’s comments was that, once you did the under 5 mph move to hook the trailer, if you shut off the truck. Wait a minute or two and restart. It resets location data and forgets the minor move, as long as you didn’t also exceed how ever far of a distance limit is in the eld. Some of the old ones were three miles, the new ones are 100 feet.

 

Tried to cheat. Trucking is now a game show.

 

Spot on observation. I used to arrive early, now I cannot afford to waste time, I wait until the last minute and sprint. And yes, I find myself speeding when I would normally be cruising under the posted speed limit of 65, now it is 69 and go go go! I am not happy.

And yes, safety is essentially out the window.

 

A very good post.

Time goes by tick tick tick when you are not worried about it.

But when you are stressed, you lose hours like instantly worrying about time itself. Rather than worrying about the trucking.

Your post is outstanding. To me the ELD is a master because you cannot move a inch without a computer alarm or some stupid problem which will accumulate. As they are already. The HOS is not the issue here.

I repeat, the HOS is not the issue. The computer in the truck telling the world you are in violation of something is similar to Judge Dredd when you are using a bad profane word and are fined credits publicly in the movie. It's stupid. Takes away the very freedoms we need to essentially do what we do.

I understand the shippers and recievers are beginning to scream bloody murder. That's ok too by me. They should have screamed 40 years ago when that truck got there when it got there late sometimes. (And they did...)

In the past you could tear a paper log. Now this ELD threatens to tear this Industry from the bottom to the top. Straight through and up. A big part of me is very happy Im out of it as the extent of this madness is becoming apparent.

Moral of the story, these laws are sometimes written by a people who never touched a truck ever. And they kept mucking about with it until they royally screwed it up. And what did the Industry do? Nothing. But meekly purchase more computers to comply. HA.....