ELD BECOMES LAW IN 60 DAYS

What it really comes down to is that the HOS rules make drivers run unsafe.

For example, I have a driver sitting in Laramie. He ran out of hours last night waiting for the "closed to light trailers" signs to come down. If he could have run, he'd have had a nice smooth ride around 9 pm. Now he's "fresh", but he's goign to have to buck wind around Elk Mountain this morning.

It's not the ELD that's the problem, it's HOS. That is where we have to focus our energy for change.

 

If the outlaws are the reason we have the regulation then why were some of the earliest adopters of logging devices the large companies? Because they figured out how many jobs they could cut in their offices since they no longer had to manually audit logs and no longer had to rely on the driver to update their available hours. If the outlaws are the reason why is it that the crash data points to the megas that have eld's and micro manage their drivers down to the minute? And if you say the eld's have nothing to do with speeding through towns and work zones and racing around parking lots then you better look around and see who's guilty of that.

 

Fat fingers... Posted too soon

Anyways, now that they're coming we have plenty of time to deal with figuring stuff out. I'm not one to sit and hope the great OOIDA saves me from eld's. There's 2 years to run like you have them. Shoot, run 100% legal for a month and check your numbers.

My truck is a '95. Will I keep hauling livestock? I don't know. Maybe. I've been getting tired of it. If I go do something else I will probably run an eld just to have proof for detention time. Eld's aren't the end, only a change. Sometimes change is good. It can get people out if the "same old thing" and onto something else.

 

Well said. As it stands, I am starting to look at things a lil different. Everyone has posted valid points, but @Cowpie1 has made the best one. He CHOSE to adopt an ELD. The device is not the problem, it is the HOS attached to it. As a grown up( well most of the time) I feel you should have choices, until you prove you're not capable. The company I'm leased to offers a choice, until you prove otherwise. I'm not going into a different field, been there, done that. Transportation fits me to a T. Will I revamp my business plan? More than likely. A tweak here, a shift there, but will I continue to harass the FMCSA about the inflexibility within the rules? Most definitely! I just get tired of folks trying to say that this one set of standards works for everyone. Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

Gentlemen, i ve read all 18 pages, most of you are right, but i d like to show you this video about elogs. Totally agree with the guy.
http://www.livetrucking.com/driver-perfectly-sums-up-how-we-all-feel-about-the-e-log-mandate/

 

This right here says all I need to know about the true motive behind the mandate:

The big carriers made the business decision to use elogs, because they were large enough to save more money than it costs them to buy the devices and subscribe to the service by not having to pay as many people to sit in the office auditing logs. However, this caused them to be at a competitive disadvantage in their ability to get the job done on the road moving freight...so they want to "level the playing field", which in reality tips the scale in their favor because the small company won't save enough money on payroll to make up for the added expense of the system. Not only that, but the flexibility currently enjoyed by the small company to get the job done is eliminated, once again tipping the scale in favor of the large fleet who may have trucks available to repower and relay loads to service customers. This isn't about "leveling the playing field" at all, but rather giving the megas a competitive advantage by unnecessarily increasing the cost of doing business for their competition while removing the flexibility enjoyed by their competition.

Next up is the speed limiter mandate, which is once again the effort of the ATA carriers to push their own mistake onto the rest of the industry. If they don't want their trucks to be able to run the speed limit, that's fine...but don't tell me I can't run the speed limit just because you don't want to. Same thing with elogs. If you want to run them, fine...that's a business decision you have made as a truck owner or a professional decision you made as a driver...but don't tell me that I must abide by your decision when it makes no sense economically or otherwise for me to do so. $1.99 at the truck stop for a month's worth of paper log pages does exactly the same thing for me as the $1500+ device plus the $40+/month service. I have better things to be spending my hard earned money on, so I'll be sticking with paper logs.

 

If they (ATA) want to level the playing field so bad then they should make their members give up all purchasing discounts they get because of volume. From trucks and trailers to fuel and tires. You pay what I pay and I'd be more open to your ideas on how to make trucking "better" for all of us.

 

Oops, my bad. Sorry!

 

I would put my money on MORE DEATHS and MORE CRASHES!

 

ATA members have already been making the talk circuit about paper loggers getting 100 extra miles a day over the Elog counterparts. Very insulting to to propagate that lie.
I have seen other videos of trucking executives talking about the Elogs and driver facing cams, he basically said the drivers who don't accept them and quit are exactly the drivers he doesn't want working for him. The way I took it was he wanted sheep to drive his trucks who when told to 'jump', reply "how high?"