ELDs encourage unsafe driving when uncontrollable delays occur.

I get the dispatcher thing, but ive been told I suffer fools poorly.... once they learn that we get along great.

 

I dont think the problem is the ELDs, in all fairness 11 hours of driving a day should be plenty. In my opinion the biggest flaw is the WINDOW that we have to have everything done in a day. Loading/unloading , traffic,weather. Way to many variables in a day that can happen. Not to mention now of someone gets tired for what ever reason they can't take a nap because said window is closing which puts themself and everyone around them at risk.

Another issue IMO is the 34(36 for CDNs) that we have to reset every 70 hours. We seem to spend more time sitting now then we ever had esp every night with the 10 hours off. Why do we need to sit for a full reset on top of that every 70 hours now.......

 

You dont HAVE to do a reset, before the reset rule you just recapped all the time.

 

Not if you've max out driving every day

 

Productivity wise, after the latest changes came into effect in September 2020, there is almost nothing that I could not do on E-logs now, which I was able to do on paper logs in older days.

Basically, 14 hour limit is of a little nuisance now and I am sure that in the pre ELD days, it was the most frequent reason to falsify logs, while the 2nd reason was 70 hours. 7/3 split also ads a lot of flexibility and the possibility to use PC when leaving shippers or receivers in search for a reasonably safe resting place is a useful tool too.
The only thing that ELDs might indeed promote as unsafe is the inevitable race against the clock. For instance, if someone has 5 miles to the truck stop and 4 minutes left on the clock, he might be tempted to drive that distance a little too aggressively.

As far as being better rested driving now on Elogs vs the old paper log days, it is difficult to say. Certainly, ELDs promote less falsifying, and make egregious driving of 1000 and more miles a day impossible but driving while not fatigued they can guarantee not.

 

I only work 3.5-4 days a week anymore. I like to work less make more.

 

I have more <2000 mile weeks than I do >2000 mile weeks. I don’t understand why you would want to drive 11 hours a day until you run out of hours for the week….I would burn out fast! One 70 hour week since 2012 for me.

 

Still do t HAVE to do a reset, take 24 hrs off and recap. You need to plan ahead and have a couple shorter days in you week, you wont run out then.
You dont HAVE to do 36off.

 

You got that right!

 

Glad I’m not the only one that unplugs the unit and other monitoring electronics but the order in which I do it is: shut the truck off, go onduty for post trip for 8 minutes, log off duty, log out of ELD, put ELD in airplane mode if you can, power off ELD, kill all power to truck(disconnecting battery cables or flipping main cut off switch), tape or unplug any monitoring cameras, unplug “black box”, disconnect ELD power cable(just in case it powers up by mistake without you realizing it), wait about 2 minutes, return power to the truck, and get back on the road. Typically don’t do this habitually and at all costs avoid getting pulled over and also bypass any scale no matter what. I also don’t suggest driving more than about 2 hours and don’t drive further than 100 miles or so. It’s also not the best thing to start out in one state and then put it all back together in another state as that will look to suspicious. Realize also that the odometer reading on the ELD will be different in your logs from when you logged out and when you eventually log back in, which in my experience gets overlooked by compliance personnel. Now before you log back in and put everything back together I wait until my 10 hour break or should I say 8 hour break(since the log will show that you have already been on break for 2 hours even though you drove those 2 hours) is complete. Now if you had a significant time available on your clock to use when when you logged off and unplugged everything and you want to drive more dirty, you can just break for 6 hours to start a split break, but make sure that instead of going off duty, put yourself in the sleeper berth status before logging off and unplugging everything. Just plan on being a bit nervous for 8 days after you’ve done this. Never do it twice in a week. Sometimes it’s possible to do it while sitting in a time consuming traffic jam and your at a stand still when you’re really short on hours available. I get my mandatory 30 minute breaks out of the way by doing this dirty trick many times while in a congested slow traffic or in a stopped traffic situation. Sometimes it’s possible to get the 30 minute break done, if your ELD has the option, by putting yourself in a yard move status when traffic is moving at a snail’s pace. Just be aware that if you get stopped by a very clever DOT officer, he will see these violations when he inspects your logs and you will suffer all kinds of fines from those multiple violations and most likely will be put out of service and 99% likely to be unemployed. And mostly likely won’t get hired to drive for some other company because your CSA score will be so terrible. God forbid you get into an accident when you’re driving off duty and have unplugged everything, most likely you’ll be paying out a lot of dough from criminal and civil fines, and sitting in a prison cell for a while. Be safe everybody and be ready to start paying for even higher ridiculous fuel prices(LETS GO BRANDON).