ELD Are there any silver linings

LOL
Sorry no to imply anything,
But we are haul of share of stuff, so why the different rules

 

Why do cattle haulers get the exemption???
It's like dot knows that cattle haulers will be violating hos laws but they are ok with it as long as they are on paper logs and can make it look legit.
After all I have heard over and over if you log legal there is no difference between eld and paper...

 

Do cattle haulers get an exemption? Or is this just truck stop counter bs? I can see an exemption for the 30 minute break, but I have a hard time seeing an exemption use case for eld.

Of course is there a cattle hauler out there with a 2000 or newer truck?

 

Yes livestock haulers are exempted from elogs. And yes everyone knows the reason is so they can fudge the book. Beef has a ton of political pull. Just the way it is.

 

The cattleman's association has applied for an exemption and it looks like they may be successful at least for the short term.
I started this ride back in the eightys as a bull hauler and there is just no way that you can just run your 11/14 and then take a ten hour break while livestock sits on a cramped trailer with no food or water or a place to lay down.
As soon as the animal rights groups figure this out there will be a big problem.
As far as the thirty minute break goes yea I see the the exemption for cattle haulers but??
If it is always cramed down our throats that the regs are always about safety why can a bull hauler run safely without a thirty min break but the rest of us can't ?

 

You do know you can drive to get to a safe place to park right? It happens to me every once in a while, job site delivery takes a few hours longer than it should due to weather(cranes can't operate if there is lightning in the vicinity). And I'm not spending the night on the side of the street so i just head to the closest place for safe parking. Sometimes that's a rest area, sometimes its a #### pilot, other times its my drive way.

Is it technically a violation? Yes. and to date i have never had a dot officer give me grief about it. Not during a roadside inspection and not during an audit. I take a full 10 once I'm parked, and i try my best to make it not appear habitual by planning my trips good enough that I'm not constantly going over hours. The dot cares about habitual offenders, nor the guy that occasional gets fixed to violate hos due to things outside his control.

 

Except they're aren't. Not yet anyway. The bill still has a ways to go. So far its only cleared committees. And for now, it would only be an exception for the 2018 fiscal year.

Text from the bill:

SEC. 132. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the Department of Transportation by this Act or any other Act may be obligated or expended to implement, administer, or enforce the requirements of section 31137 of title 49, United States Code, or any regulation issued by the Secretary pursuant to such section, with respect to the use of electronic logging devices by operators of commercial motor vehicles, as defined in section 31132(1) of such title, transporting livestock as defined in section 602 of the Emergency Livestock Feed Assistance Act of 1988 (7 U.S.C. 1471) or insects.

More
As cow haulers applaud ELD exemption in DOT funding bill, legislation advances

 

A note about proper trip planning. We hear this term a lot and while every one knows the definition of the phrase, i don't think very many actually understand how to put it into practice so I'm going to give an example. If nothing else maybe some greenhorn will learn something.

I have a 3200 mile run scheduled for this Friday. And its also oversize so not only do i have the normal hos rules to consider, i also am limited to sunrise to sunset driving, must be shut down by noon Saturday and can't run at all Sunday. Plus i have several cities in route that have curfews, not allowed to drive through them between 7am and 930 am, or 330 pm to 7pm. And have to coordinate routing through 13 different states. Once getting the load i spent two hours planning the route and applying for permits, having to tell each individual state what roads is be taking thru their state and when. Not to mention having to schedule the crane to unload me where I will be charged 75 dollars per 15 minute interval if I'm late. Yes i know exactly when i will arrive on a 3k+ run that i haven't even loaded yet.

I havent even loaded it yet but i know exactly where I'm going to stop for fuel, my 30 minute break and where I'm going to be taking my 10 hour break at, plus where to stop before curfew cities, with back up places for everyone in case things go pear shaped. At no point are my scheduled stops cutting it close enough that anything short of a several hour delay will cause me issues.

This is how trip planning is supposed to be done. Loading in California going to the east coast with a trip plan consisting of the route and try to find parking once your clock shows 30 minutes remaining is NOT proper trip planning.

To steal a line from @TripleSix Bring your A game everytime. No excuses.

 

It hasn't cleared? My mistake. I only paid so much attention to it. The only cows i haul are my own and the auction lot is only 10 miles away.

 

> Yes BUT
Your forgetting something, we all have done it this way. NOW with the ELDs you CAN"T. there is no more fudging, there is no more stretching it out. The ELDs are taking over and telling US when and how we can drive. You can Plan, but the ELD now has the finale say on what you can do, how long, how far, and don't even get me started over the fact that this is MY TRUCK, Not a company truck. So when i am OFF DUTY and i use it for "PERSONAL CONVEYANCE" its no one's business where i am, when i am, or what i am doing.
So if yo have been sitting at a dock for say 1 hour and 40 mins, now you MT and its time to move,
Guess what, you move and your 2 hr split just went out the window, can't fix it, can't recover it, NOTHING.
Or if you at the end of your day and your stuck at Costco for 3 hrs and now your MT, but hey, my 14 hrs ran out 30 mins ago. Your SCREWED. You can't legally drive anywhere, hell even moving around the yard at Costco above 5mph will throw you into a violation. Not to mention you lose the 3 hrs you had in the sleeper already and have to start all over again.
So yeah, the geniuses in DC really thought about this a lot.
And the darn things don't help at all. A lot of the scales now are logging the truck as it goes through, between PrePass, NorPass and taking Pictures. They know when you went through what.
So honestly, what is the ELD really doing??

And if a 40 yr old driver can run a semi with Cattle in it without an ELD legally - THEN WHY THE HELL can't a 40yr old driver run a semi with cereal in it without an ELD ????? What is the difference??????
I'm sorry, but that is just BS!!!