paper log or electronic logs?

I am in amazement that anyone is even still mentioning the safety thing. This has never been about safety, only compliance. But it sure is fun to watch. I got an email from one of the fleet management rags the other day with a video attached where some heavy hitters with the ATA are now hollering and crying foul over the new HOS and compliance and how it is hurting them. Well, they wanted it, so they are going to have to deal with it. I am not sympathetic in the least that these morons wanted to make a Faustian deal with government and now they are finding out they have been had. Unfortunately, they have drug us all into the deep end of the pool with them. Well, it is what it is. We can holler and cry in our beer or we can find ways to work around the problems until someone intelligent in D.C. realizes the mess they have created. And on that note, I am not optimistic.

 

Well, primarily, it **IS** about safety, and should be. They tried to let the industry self-police itself, but that failed; and when the trucker accident rate and death toll kept climbing, they decided to do something, and in the absence of viable input put into place something NOONE likes.

Hopefully, the next version isn't a complete overreaction and goes too far the other way...

 

When they let us police ourselves, the "cowboys" took advantage of it and screwed us all.

 

Bingo.

Goestio prove: humans on the whole cannot be trusted to do the right thing without supervision.

 

When did they ever let us police ourselves & how did the cowboys screw us all?

 

I can't be persuaded e-logs are about safety over compliance. Looking at a majority of companies which use e-logs, and the safety stats/CSA scores they carry with them, the notion just isn't adding up. A better company is a better company, period. A "driver" who can't stay in their line, can't back up without tearing someone's hood off, doesn't pay attention to their mirrors, tailgates, doesn't do pre- and post-trips, etc. is not any safer for using e-logs.
What would make the roads safer? Better drivers in a better industry. Slow trucks, e-logs, inward facing cameras, and the like... will not.

 

I think a lot of the harassment by dispatchers was put to an end with Elogs more so than anything, the having to do the impossible feat with no time left.

 

Paper logs. That was "policing ourselves". None of us ever logged it "like we did it". And the cowboys? I refuse to call them outlaws, that would be showing them respect. The ones who constantly get caught and screw up. You don't need to be wearing a Stetson and some boots. The new age cowboys wear track suits and drive Volvos and live in Chicago

 

It is primarily about "safety" from a talking point view. But it really has very little to actually do with safety. One thing to always keep in mind, the government actually does not give much of a rip about anyone's safety, unless it jeopardizes their funding stream.

To wit, cigarettes. If they are so harmful, if we got to keep them out of kids hands, etc, then why not ban them? Because most states, the tobacco taxes generate a very hefty amount for the states revenue stream.

21 drinking ages. Now there is a irony if there ever was one. It is ok to send an 18 year old off to have some Jihadist cut his head off or blow him up via a roadside bomb, but, by God, we are not going to let that young man have a beer until he is 21.

And the list goes on and on. The sole reasoning behind virtually all that government gets its fingers in is power, control, and revenue. They sure give lip service to caring for the folks, but their actions exhibit a much different mindset.

As for the accident rate decreasing over the last few years for commercial trucks, it has to be factored into the decrease in the number of commercial trucks on the road, the downside to the economy because of recession, and the higher costs of fuel that have led many fleets to speed limit trucks and even many O/O to slow down a bit to conserve. HOS may have contributed, but not to the extent that some would tout in the trucking rags. FMCSA, like anyone, likes to extract the numbers that make it look good and ignore those that they had no control over. It is about budgets and funding. The greater they can look regarding safety, the more secure their appropriations from Congress. See last paragraph.

 

The '70s, basically, when full deregulation hit. The drivers begged for it (egged on by the companies), they got it, and their incomes have been plummeting ever since...