E-log causing more stress?

Ok, I was thinking something was different in the way things were phrased. Sorry for being rude.

I thought you were going to sell something.

 

The 14 hr rule is the problem I have with the HOS. I'm fine with not being able the drive after 11 hrs, until you have a 10 hr break, but you should be able to drive say 5hrs, be off-duty for 4hrs, and still have 6 hrs on your clock.

The HOS are written to keep people from driving tired. There are plenty of people that have a spotless log but are still tired. I do understand what you are saying, some companies would hop you up on coke and drive you for 24hrs if they could do it legally, but that's not the reason the feds give for implementing the HOS, they claim it keeps people from being too tired and having a wreck.

 

The ELD (Omnitrac XRS) at my company does the same thing. If I stop for 5 minutes it switches to on duty.

 

3 minutes or 5 doesn't matter? That's 3-5 minutes you CAN'T get back. If it happens a couple times during a day, it adds up. Only time I "ran out of hours" it was only by 9 minutes, on a busy day...a drop & hook, a live load, a drop, bobtail across town, hook, another drop, bobtail a short ways, and another hook. It was one of those days where it'd almost be better to be paid by the duty status change rather than by the mile or by the hour. Wound up hitting 11 when I stopped at the post office to check my mail on the way into town...8 miles from home. Probably lost 20 minutes due to the ELD and only needed 9 of them back to not have it show a violation.

And yes, mine only penalizes me 5 minutes EACH TIME as well...but they add up. When you've got a busy day and you know you're racing the 14 as well, the last thing you want to do is start fighting with an ELD when it isn't wanting to give "on duty" as an option because you've selected it every time the truck stops (to check in, drop, hook, etc...) and don't stay there very long before it kicks you up onto the drive line when the truck moves again...so you have to either log out and log back in to get the correct option, or select an incorrect option and then go back and edit it to the correct status. I have since decided to quit messing with the stupid thing and just use YM at shippers and receivers...logs all of my time there on line 4 where it should be without continuously kicking me back up to the drive line whenever I move the truck a short distance. Only annoying thing now is after 5 minutes it generates a message "are you still driving?" ...but at least it leaves me in YM if I don't respond. It's line 4...no need for that message.

You or your company pays big bucks for your system...glad you have money to throw at a company that lobbied for the mandate, knowing full well it was money in their pocket. For all of the people who dislike "special interests", especially groups working against you, there sure are a lot of you who cozy up to them. Personally, I have better things to spend my money on than handing it over to a company that is working against me. Even burying it in a can out in the back yard is a more productive use of my money, because at least I still have it if I need it. Bad enough I had to buy an ELD...but it wasn't really all that expensive and it works better than yours. How so? It doesn't keep as much info (truck codes, overspeed/hard braking events, etc...) to report that to anyone. It also doesn't put my information out there in the cloud or on the internet...MY data is secure on my device. It also doesn't connect to the internet, wifi, or cell network, so it would be difficult for a hacker to gain access to my truck's ECM through the ELD. My truck is old enough that there are no firewalls in the system...back then, the only access possible was if you were hard-wired in...and you had to physically be in the truck to do that. But hey, if you're happy making corporations that lobbied against your best interest rich, sending your personal data into the cloud and onto the internet, and opening back doors into your truck's ECM then you go right on ahead paying monthly for your overpriced system that doesn't comply with the law any better than mine, which was bought at a small fraction of the cost and has NO monthly fees.

 

Mad ain't ya?