ELD---Which One

there goes that idea..... who else is using what? need to make up my mind here soon.. again looking for one that doesnt require a monthly fee

 

Unladen is simple (yet confusing to some)

When I bought my truck, I called DMV to get temp trip permit. They said that the permit is valid for NON-Commercial move i.e. I better not have anything in the trailer that I'm being compensated for - this to me is UNLADEN.

Basically: You better not have a BOL or your *ss is toast.

Remember, most of these rules are an extension of maritime rules. That's why we have the "100 NAUTICAL miles". Maritime vessels when empty, are referred to as UNLADEN.

But some schmuck in enforcement with GED education will claim that a truck whose 5th-wheel is "covered" with a trailer apron, is LADEN

 

Geowhiz was a disaster for my fleet as well. Did they ever tell you how to return the devices and get your money back?

 

Your 14 hour day started when you verified you were unloaded with the receiver in the morning by logging on as 'on duty'. If you did not change your duty status in the morning during unloading then you are falsifying your logs.

This whole ELD thing is a giant clusterduck. LOL

It only really works if you are a company driver paid hourly or you are running dedicated drop and hook loads.

Haven't heard anybody mention flatbed loads yet.

 

how does it work with changing ELD devices?? say you have one that dies on you for X reason, you get another one maybe even different brand, can you just unplug the old one and plug in the new one from anywhere is the country? how will that play out on an audit? what if you are on your day 5 and the officer wants to see 7 or 8 days worth? the new one wont have that info ..
Along those lines.. once you set one up and use it for X amount of time, can you pull it, "wipe it out" and replug it in as a brand new unit and thus no history to show??

 

You said quite a bit in that post. Multiple question = multiple answers.
a) "If it dies on you for X reason" - you have 8 days that you can be on paper logs again to get it fixed or replaced. Choose a maker with a good support system in place.

b) "Get another one or maybe a different brand" - If you get another one of the same brand then yes, you just plug it in and your previous cloud account (or whatever that maker uses for data backups) is still there. Just enter what you did while you were in the "paper stage" and yours is back up to date. If it is from a different company then you either begin again on day 1 and keep your paper. Or even better, enter the logs manually in the Admin area of your new device so that the hours for the last 8 days are current and correct.

c) "How will it play out in an audit" - it will play out fine as long as you have an RODS for your time with no gaps. It could be split between 10 different ELD makers and a bunch of paper as long as it is a complete record. However, it will be more painful to present if you keep switching I suspect.

d) "If you are on Day 5 and the officer wants to see 7 or 8" - that is no different than it is now. You have to keep record of the last 7 days (plus today) on you in the truck of SOME format. Even if you have it split between 2 ELD's and some paper during that period. Either way, have some form of an 8-day signed RODS record of your activity or he can cite you if he wants.

 

@Dieselboss thanks for the reply, now i need to overcome the moron on me to disect what you said and make sense of it, lol ...

I think there will a lot of late freight come ELDs the road is so unpredictable

 

"If you are on Day 5 and the officer wants to see 7 or 8" - that is no different than it is now. You have to keep record of the last 7 days (plus today) on you in the truck of SOME format. Even if you have it split between 2 ELD's and some paper during that period. Either way, have some form of an 8-day signed RODS record of your activity or he can cite you if he wants."

So now we have double the work I guess if you want to be covered in case of an inspection. You have to keep paper logs AND an ELD.

If the ELD goes on the blink and you get pulled over for an inspection and the Officer wants to see your logs.....But you only have one day of paper because the ELD malfunctioned the day before. Then you will get a ticket for no logs from the previous days.

Have I got that right?

 

thats kinda what i was thinking.. yes we must have 8 days worth in some form but if we have elds instlled, we dont do paper no more, so if the device malfunctions, goes heywire or quits working on you all of a sudden and the just few minutes ahead there is an inspection station and you get "selected" to be inspected, you are doomed right? and with that said, we better have a back up phone/tablet too incase we drop the main one or also just quits, we can pull the spare one out, plug it in download the app and keep on rollin' .. it will be a might mare and lots of money will be spent on fines

 

What both of you said is valid, yup. There is indeed a LOT OF RELIANCE on technology companies to make this work in the real world! Technology "burps." And then sometimes it does more than burp and it "pukes all over you and dies."

You would not need to carry both paper backups and the ELD readout screen normally, as long as the device is working. But I can see many people doing daily printouts for hard copy anyway just like they do with Eclipse or DDL for the last 10 years on laptops for instance.

In most cases, you have a live "cloud account" which is automatically backing up your logs all day as you go. So having a "cloud connected" ELD or AOBRD will allow you to still obtain printouts or readouts even if the device in the truck died suddenly. In other words, you could still print out everything and just go on paper today if it died 5 minutes before the scale house. They have to allow you to get the past week from your online backup or your carrier before they cite you.

They are also going to do "e-faxing, emailing, and web-services" capability. That will allow you or your company to send the logs electronically to the inspector for the ELD makers that are big enough to build in such methods.

And yes, what you said about mobile devices. If you are using your phone or tablet for the ELD readout screen instead of an "all-in-one" hard wired ELD, then you will need to keep your mobile device in good working order to even be able to show the last 8 days. Your phone or tablet dies and you "got issues man."

The companies with weaker hardware, or less-developed/newer ELD's will become obvious like a sore thumb very shortly after December for sure.