my thoughts on mandatory e logs

I don't know how your logs work in Canada, but here the computer wouldn't have even registered that short move. I truly feel bad for you if your e-log forced you to start your break over. If my e-log was going to tattle on me for moving a few feet, then I would have told the Petro guy to go away until my break was over.

You don't annotate anything. E-Logs won't register until you drive like 1 mile or so. If DOT sees moving to another parking space as a violation, then they truly are stupid. I suppose you could write something like "Had to move to a more secure safe haven" or something like that.

 

I am new to logs, but not driving. Can you explain this in more detail?

 

Recap is a matter of just adding up the hours from the previous 7 days, subtracting from 70, and that is how many hours you have available to drive today. You can operated 70 hrs in 8 days. tomorrow, you take the previous 7 days hrs, subtract from 70, and that is the hours you have available. You can repeat this cycle forever.

If you run up against the 70 hrs, you are not required to take 34 hrs off. You just have to stop till midnight, then after midnight "recap" the hours from the previous 7 days, subtract from 70, and that is the hours you have to drive . You would only have to sit a day non driving if you had racked up a lot of hours in the last 7 days, that when they are added up and subtracted from 70, you get 0 hrs. In which case, might as well do a 34 hr and recover the full 70 hrs and start it all over again.

Before the 34 hr reset thing came about this century, the "recap" method was all we had. It never went away. When the 34 reset OPTION came along, they did not do away with the recap method.

 

I see. 34 to get your 70 back. That is what I thought. But I read your other comment as you only need 30. Which I understand is incorrect. Thanks.

 

Could have been a typo. Wouldn't be the first time and probably not the last.

 

Plenty of trucking companies are already using e log I. Canada

 

It has to be on an equal level as paper logs companies usually have someone in the office who can alter an elog

 

The biggest issue with elogs is going to be finding a parking spot in the evening. Youll find that according to what part of the Country your in, that youll be in allot of cases shutting down 1 to 2 Hrs earlier than normal to avoid a log violation, trying to find a place to park. Outside of that, you can still get around 2800 to 3300 miles a week on avg.

 

That is true. Sometimes it requires advance planning of places to stop and then making a judgement of which one you can make, time of day so as to how likely parking will be, etc. E-logs do require some effort.

As for the editing and changing stuff by someone in an office, the regulation that has just been mandated has a provision that anyone outside the driver editing the log will be known by the driver and has to be approved by the driver, else the modification does not stand. More times that not it is something legit, like showing some time on duty for a driver doing a random sample drug test. Obviously the driver was not in the truck at the time to change the status on the e-log, so someone in the office made the change, but it still has to be approved by the driver.

All in all, watching how some react to the e-log thing is almost better than going to the comedy club. Sure, there are some legitimate concerns, but some of the comments are so ridiculous that it is obvious that person has absolutely no first hand experience or knowledge of e-logs. Kinda like someone still in boot camp trying to proclaim how to fight the war.

 

While this is good advice it doesn't apply to most companies out there. Very few allow company drivers line 5. It would be a God send though and I'm jealous you have it, lol!