E-logs and Reality

30 hrs? What was his story?

 

I'm not sure. He was hard to understand due to his speech being incoherant. He could barely keep his eyes open. It was so bad, we towed the truck off the interstate because I didn't trust him enough to drive to the next exit without killing someone.

 

That's crazy. I've been up that long before I've gotten rest (not as a driver!) when I worked o/n at Walmart and stayed up so I could "set" my internal clock for my days off. For example, I'd get up at 4:30pm on Thursday to go pick up my daughter from school and not sleep again until 10pm on Friday and I was in no condition to do much of anything but hit the sack and sleep by then.

 

When it comes to officers, like yourself, you have a job to do. You have the laws you have to inforce. My gripe is not about being able to break the law, or anythig like that. I use to be on E-logs and had no problem with them. Do i get harrased more now i have a paper log? Yes. I understand why to.

But there is to much "grey area" between paper and E-logs. For example. I drive the west coast. The scales mark you eachtime you go thru. At the end of the day, if i showed i drove 615 miles or so on a paper log. I would get in trouble. Even if i did it within my 11 hours. The DOT says i was speeding. Speed limit is 55mph, so i cant drive that many miles in 11. Officer is correct. I might be driving 58-59 or so

When i was on E-logs/Qualcomm, i would always do about 630-645 a day on the same road in my 11. 2 times officers check my Qualcomm and would see i did over the speed limit, but would not say a thing. Only if your on paper.

Unload times. On my qualcomm, if i just bumped the docked, waited a hour or so for the receiver to unload me, close my doors and leave. I only had to put 15 mins on line 4. When i went in to a scale and was checked the only 2 times on Qualcomm, officer would never say anything.

Did the samething on my paper log. Officer made me re-write it all as line 4.

So you can break some laws on Qualcomm, but dont do it on paper.

I know 99% of officers are makeing sure drivers are safe to drive. I dont have a problem with officers. Law makers on the other hand, not to sure about.

Some of the new laws comeing out have no studies that prove they will make roads more safe. Like the 34 hour restart rule, how is it going to be better by makeing drivers take 2 periods between 0100-0500 before they can get a restart. I guess trucking should turn into a 5 day a week job. Now drivers will be more prone to screwing up there recaped hours, more tickets

As fore E-logs, if they make a law for all trucks to have them, The E-log is not my gripe, the added cost is what i dont like. There is enough laws to take more money from me. Just like the rest of the laws, ill overcome it. Just one more step to only haveing the Mega Carriers run the show i guess.

 

Dieselbear--I have a question regarding the 34 hr restart. All of my drivers are home for at least 34 hr every weekend. Drivers running shorthaul often work about 14 hr per day, 5 days per week then take 36-48 hours off. Long haul drivers generally end their week Friday and leave again on Sunday once they have completed their restart. In either scenario, the 2 1-5AM requirement is not a problem. What I am unsure of is how the once per week limit will affect what my drivers do.

 

I never said i push it or let them push me. But they will push the willing. I dont think they should be allowed to even offer. I think Buyers and shippers should be more in tuned to our laws.

 

I think that law is still 2 years away from even being put into effect. Lots of appeals comeing in the next year on this from what i have read.

 

We were just discussing that the other day regarding our regional fleet. If I come across any more discussion about it I'll shoot you an email. I'm also curious about this, I need to read more into it but I just haven't found the time. When I ran regional fleets you banked on the 34, but limiting them to once every 168 hours seem impractical and very difficult to check in an inspection.

 

From what was published, it seems they are all about promoting a routine schedule. To me that is exactly what we accomplish. The 168 hr rule has me concerned. Is it from beginning to beginning or end to beginning. More info would be greatly appreciated.

 

I have been using E-logs for a while now and I can honestly say they work great for me. I never have to figure out how much time I have left to drive, how much time I have left on my 14 or 70. I don't have any need to fudge my logs so I have no issue with trying to get arouind the HOS rules. It even gives me 45 minutes of off duty driving per day to go to Walmart or get something for dinner away from the truckstop.
The only drawback I have noticed however small is, I never know exactly where I am as I did before I started using them. The electronics GPS my location for me so I never have to enter that data. That could be a bad thing in some respects. Then when they are complete all I do is approve and submit, done deal. We are turning into steeering wheel holders even more each day.