"FORCED to break-the-law!---"Elogs and the Catch 22???"

The reason for the current HOS is for drivers who don’t have a brain to be competitive. The elogs will tell them when to park, but they will need someone to tell them where and how to park.

 

That is one possibility, by the other side of coin there is enough information pending weather events ongoing and forecasted out to 72 hour with increasing accuracy to within 6 hours of a given local spot plus minus 5 miles in domestic NOAA modeling.

Although I cannot expect too many drivers to engage in weather planning in addition to trip planning.

 

@Brandt No I don’t like working for free for sure. I wasn’t advocating working for free. These dummies blowing their horns about logs need to need to come to grips with the reality of the stupidity of elogs. Elogs aren’t going to do anything to solve the money issues in this industry. When drivers start getting paid by the hour as they should we MIGHT see some improvements in many areas of trucking. To me it is just unreal that drivers bought into the concept of being paid by the miles. Couple that will elogs you and you have a huge recipe for more accidents.

 

I actually advocate a fixed salary sufficient to give a driver a decent living each week. No more mileage pay and certainly not hourly pay. That dispenses two of the biggest stressors facing a OTR driver. They can work 7 days that week doing 20 miles or 20,000 knowing there will be a paycheck in the bank on a given day. If that is the case, then compliance with HOS should then bring no excuses or problems.

I think the industry is slapped with the computer HOS because we drivers as a percentage abused it too long on paper logs that were essentially BS. I prefer to think that we have been free to roam and now the micromanagement has to be whipped into us all by computer remotely.

There is one truth that all dispatchers know deep down, and that is the load will get there when it gets there. Not a minute before when you are running by HOS. The USA is no longer 2 inches wide on the wall map in side a dispatch office. When the industry does accept that the HOS is set in stone and shippers and receivers quit abusing drivers who say they are out of hours etc then things will improve as it should. Otherwise the games will continue.

 

Another case really of bureaucratic blundering the folks that seem to demand these rules have no real idea of what its like out there on the road perhaps they need to physically go out with a driver and just see what he must endure. What is sad with your current system is once you've started your 11/14 you can't reset despite say having 5 hours off at a warehouse so the driver could lose 4 - 5 hours of driving time. Some how i can't see this system working well at all.

 

With West Side, I am essentially salaried. It removes an incredible amount of stress. There is no need to worry about payday. I just make it my goal to manage my time wisely and run out my 70.

 

It won’t work if elogs are done improperly. When drivers can ease around to a door and not show that as on duty they are cheating the same as on paper. Throw in any other cheating they do and nothing positive has been accomplished. The lies are logged on a computer and not on paper. But they consider themselves better than those of us on paper for whatever stupid justification they can dream up.

 

I don't see any rational way to separate pay and safety.

 

Ran out of hours in Vernon cal last nite loading ..no legal place to park .
Solution : ..turn off volume on qaulcom and drive 45 miles to rialto ..park and go to bed .
Call safety this morn explained situation and no problem .
Problem solved .

 

I did that once in Garden City loading Meat of all places (Western Kansas above Liberal) Dispatch told me to stay put. No 60 miles south to Liberal where there is a pretty good Independence on the west end. And so the fuel tick tick tick. I made it there with three gallons to spare. Eventually. Reefer had been off about 6 hours prior out of fuel. Loaded too. THAT was not welcome. (What I should have done is mooched fuel off another company trailer and let THAT one run dry.)

That was not a good week for me, but it's done. No point in crying about it.