For Those Who Went From Paper Logs to Electronic

Your like me i shower pretty much everyday and that's a great to hear that drivers take the time to shower, Hy gene is very important, Hell i keep my as clean take care

 

conforming to some arbitrary rules based on "god knows what" is your definition of time management?

so if fmcsa said that you could drive 12 hours or 8 hrs or you must sleep 6 hours or 12 hours, would your definition of your own personal time management also change?

time management to me means, i pace myself to get to my load a bit early and ready for the next load, time management is based upon what it takes to get the job done, not on some government entity dictating when i am too tired to drive

but some of you like big government dictating your life and livelihood

 

time management means to me, keeping the left door closed and getting the job done.

If you are at a dock and in the sleeper, then log it as sleeper. The FMCSA regs allow for this. Use it to your advantage. I have talked with guys that get to the dock, full 6-8 hours detention and every hour of it is on-duty and they slept the entire time. Supervalu and Kraft were good for that. BAD time and EOBR management.

You get into a rest area, punch the clock to off-duty for the 10 minutes you are going to be in on the crapper. It's ok to do that. Do that 3-5 times a day, you just gained 30-50 minutes on the 70 hour clock for the week. Do that over a week, it's a good 150-250 minutes. over 2 HOURS of drive time.

I killed my EOBR when I was on it. 2800-3000 miles was a norm for me running regional and home every Friday. If I got stuck with detention time, I couldn't get into the sleeper fast enough. I'd have the yard dogs wake me up when done. I'd tell that to the idiots behind the glass window too. Guards, I'd toss them a Hormel Completes Microwave meal I picked up for 97 cents. How that crap would make a guard have a good day, I have no clue. But it did, so I used it to my advantage.

If I noticed I started to get a lot of dock time, I'd hammer my dispatcher on lost drive time and being unproductive. "That's trucking." was her normal answer. I'd toss it right back on her and say that's NOT trucking, that's bad resource management. I was hired to drive a truck, not negotiate with dock workers to get me unloaded.

Owner was pissed the night I called him and told him he had 30 minutes to figure out how to get a load off or me on an empty trailer or I was coming home 70 miles with it when SuperValu in Hopkins MN was messing with me for the 4th time. He was even more pissed when I came home bobtail the 5th time. It was the last time I went in there. I bought my own truck the next week.

I have had brokers offer me loads into that pit. I add $1500 every time right on the top. They want to know why. I tell them to call and talk to Brian there. They get the message because they already know about Brian in the dry receiving office.

It's because carriers are afraid to piss off a "customer" when the customer is the one who should be kissing ###. It's totally backwards.

It should be mutual and it's not.

Last I heard, SuperValu was having issues with the union over this guy. Hope they fire his ###. It'd make the work there go a lot easier.

 

I went to elogs for the first time really no different than paper just instead of writing you type and punch buttons.

 

As far the e-logs go...IMO they help keep those 100mph dispatchers honest. Best thing ever as far as I'm concerned, they also keep drivers that would be tempted to stretch the limits a bit honest too. Either way.... my family and yours are a little safer in the long run. Who isn't for that!

 

I'll argue that point with you.....

On elogs, you are running against that 14 hour clock to get your 11 hour day in. You get rushed, you get beat and you get reckless to get things done.

I don't feel that anymore on the paper. I know I need to keep it under 14 hours. I sure as hell try to keep it under 14 hours too.

But if something happens on the road, bad weather, accident, or some other thing well beyond my control, I don't get stressed like I did on elogs.

I am allowed to remain a human being able to deal with a situation. I am not "part of the truck" because of the stupid computer.

 

I can see your point but, IMO you don't let things that are out of your control begin to control YOU. When you let the human element (your words not mine) take over.... then the human tries to take control over things that he can't ( read cheat, lie, or however you want describe it ) to get the job done..if it works out fine...if it don't then that decision to rush and maybe get reckless to get things done ( again your words ) can turn an other-wise safe driver who wants to get home that nite into the driver who will do what it takes to get home or deliver that load at any cost...that is when things can get deadly dangerous in a hurry...IMO the priorities are get the job done safely 1st no exceptions...it worked for me for over 30 years and I see no reason for it not to work for anyone else. Your mileage may vary......

 

Elogs take that control away from you. You start your 14 hour clock that day, you have forced yourself to complete your day in that window. One thing goes wrong in that window, you are stuck not being able to complete a pre-planned day whether you want to or not.

Even if you are 10 minutes from the end of your drive.

Shipper delays you 2 hours. Receiver delays you 2 hours. You have burned up 4 hours of your day if you log it like you are allowed even sleeper/off-duty PROVIDED your carrier allows you. Nothing ANYONE does will stop that 14 hour clock once you start it on E-logs.

You are now limited to 10 hours driving that day. (14-4=10) so you stop 2 times for rest stops. Those burn up 10-15 minutes of time just to get off the road, do the break and get back onto the big road. Take another 20 minutes off the day. takes you down to 9:40 or less.

How about taking a lunch break. Make it one of your rest stops, you can add at least another 20-40 minutes and that brings you down to 9 hours in a day.

You realize that you'd miss your planned end of day stop and the next closest stop is 45 minutes back. Now you are only driving 8:15.

You just lost 3 hours driving time for the week. You may not have lost those 3 hours on your 70 hour clock, but you just lost 3 hours of drive time for your work week in reality. You can't get those 3 hours back today. You may be able to roll those 3 hours into a day later in the week if you are out long enough to force yourself up against that 70 hour clock. Gets into that whole "70/8 days" argument and how many hours you can really drive in a day. Another topic really that is related.

DM/dispatcher whomever now is harping on you because they see you didn't drive a 10 hour day. How come you only got 8:15 hours in? You can't time manage? What's wrong? Can't do your job?



You just busted your ### for 15 hours though when all is said and done for the day. You easily start 15-30 minutes before you really move the truck to start that 14 hour clock and you know you are doing stuff for another 15-30 minutes after you shut down.

You may have done everything perfect that day too.

Now toss in a blown tire, accident, bad weather, scale pulling random log checks/weight stops. I have had days where every ILL/MO scale was pulling people in and making them roll across the scale with a full stop. No by-passes allowed. You can loose 1/2 hour easy right there. Do that for 3-4 scales in a day. Even if you "fudge the elog" and put yourself to "off-duty" as you idle up to the scale to save the 11 hour clock.


How bad do you think that 14 hour clock on Elogs is going to make a stressor for any driver?


You can sit there and tell me you have driven for 30 years, with no accidents.

It's gonna give you a bad day and you are going to get an attitude and say something to someone.

one thing is true in this business, It's not a matter of IF you will have an accident, just a matter of when.

Even if you have a 3 million mile safe driving award, you can't say you haven't bumped something in those 30 years you didn't intend to. No matter how slight. I commend you, because safety has never had one of those "bumps" reported to them.

And you are right, no job is so important that you can't do it safely. But even bump something you didn't mean to, you did something unsafe. Even if you think it's so minor it doesn't matter you don't have to report it. Your own mind, YOU know you screwed up. It may have been so simple as ticking a cone in a parking lot.

That's just bumping docks to do one load and unload in a day. Do stuff regionally where you can hit 3-4 docks in a day and each time it takes 2 hours. put 75-150 miles between those stops. You have 6 hours drive time. 8 hours of dock time. There is going to be delays with traffic in and out of those places. You aren't going to be driving 55 mph to each and every place. It might average only 30-45 mph.

[sarcasm]
Yop, you the driver have really got things under control on E-logs. You can pre-plan your day and NOT put any stress on yourself at all.

Where you sit in 14 hours is where you sit. Don't be moving that truck son. Even if you are 10 minutes from home.
[/sarcasm]

 

Yep, I said it in my last sentence...your mileage may vary. Oh and another thing. For the 32 years of safe driving that I worked really hard to accomplish. There are lots of drivers with safety records of 40 to 50 years of not ever having an accident or as YOU say it bumping something that you didn't intend to or (as YOU say ) tick a cone in a parking lot. This quote is and I say this with all the respect that I'm able to muster young man since you've already called me a liar... "one thing is true in this business, It's not a matter of IF you will have an accident, just a matter of when."..... Is as false as it can be and there are alot of retired drivers like me that will agree with this...I don't want to argue with you b/c I already know that after your 8 years of rushing around trying to beat the clock that would be a waste of my time sir...but I'll leave you with this...keep that attitude of yours and what you said in that moment of "wisdom" that when is gonna come around sooner than you think. I'll just Pray that when it happens that you don't kill anybody or yourself.

 

you make more assumptions than I do.

yop, I can see we both have no respect for the other. You assume just because I put 8 years of experience, I have only that much and that I have been running around willy nilly.

I see an old time trucker who feels he know is all after 32 years or more of service and can do no wrong.

We will agree to disagree.

These are observations I make of what other drivers are doing and the frustrations that they feel and deal with on the road. Observations based on reality and what is really happening to them.

E-logs and a 14 hour clock will create more bad situations for people to get into because it is human nature for one side (dispatchers) to not trust drivers to do a "decent days work".

Drivers don't feel that dispatchers have a realistic outlook on what it is they deal with on a day to day basis.

Shippers and receivers don't care what happens past their dock.

Rule makers do only what the agencies/lobbyist tell them they want.


And we as drivers sit here and ##### at each other and call the other liars because the old timers think the young drivers don't know #### and the young drivers think the old timers have no willingness to help us and all they do is tell us we don't know how to driver or do things.

In the mean time, as drivers, we get walked on by management, lobbyists and the agency that dictates to them what they will do.

All doing nothing to address the fact we work 6 hours longer a day than is considered labor department normal with no protection of pay or anything else.