FMCSA investigating driver harassment with Elogs.

I'm jealous. My elogs doesn't have a great big RED pencil on it. As a matter of fact, it only has two colors... black 'n white.

There are carriers that don't have the database locked down... and allow dispatch to edit it at will. Remember, we're talking about total BFI's here.

 

It is truly amazing to see how paranoid those who have very little, or no, experience with e-logs get. It has some quirks that one needs to use to their advantage, but it is really surprisingly simple and an not some evil ogre just sitting there waiting to beat you in the privates if you screw up. Granted, companies can allow or disallow certain things, like editing or driving off duty to go get a bite to eat. But that is purely company policy stuff. FMCSA allows editing of e-logs by the driver, and in fact, it is a provision written into the new e-log regulations that will be coming out. And it also states, that any editing done by the carrier must be approved by the driver also! All it takes is some research on what is the real deal and not just CB chatter.

 

I could edit anything I felt like on eLogs. I could change driving to off duty, sleeper, on duty, it didn't matter. It would just record the original status and the reason I entered for making the change. It would then change the line from black to red and show that I was the one that changed it. I would imagine most systems are set to be like this.

 

I doubt writing to the fmcsa would do any good, but wish I still had at least 11/14, with that 30 min. Break we only have 11/13.5 where I'm at, we can edit everything but drive time

 

The driver you describe is probably also the driver that heads down the road, puts the truck in the ditch, then says he fell asleep!

 

I have about six years experience with pnet. I liked it because it saved me time and I got home sooner. I could not change anything after-the-fact, but if I forgot to log out off-duty at the end of my shift(I wouldn't know, most of the time, that I'd forgotten to log out until I signed in the next day)then the next morning I'd call my dispatcher, tell him I'd forgot, and he would correct my error and the pnet would reset itself and I was good to go. There was one very strange issue with pnet during the 30 days following the change to the HOS rules that July of 2013. When I finished my 5th work day the pnet said I had only 6 hours left the next day(I'd volunteered to work one of my days off). I told my dispatcher about it and he said not to worry, it would be fine in the morning when I logged back in. It was. The next morning the pnet said I had 12.75 hours left to work. So I used 12 of those hours up and finished with .75 left. The weird part was that two days later I got to thinking and added up my hours from my little notepad I used to write down when I arrived and departed somewhere, where I was, and so forth and discovered that I'd put in 77 hours on-duty in an 8 day period, which is a big no-no. The pnet did not reflect that. That was the only time that I ever had something weird happen. I was paid by the hour then and I was paid for 77 hours. Still haven't figured out how that all happened.

 

There was a week, I think in 2012 when the peoplenet servers failed the the backups didn't work correctly. It made for a long week of guess how many hours people had.

 

Interesting. Thanks.

 

Safety can and did alter my logs on several occasions where I used to work
in order to "create" time to get loads out.
The company went out of business shortly there after.
Not because of that but they were sued out of existence
due an accident.( ironically involving a driver going down the road with zero hours available)
They had no respect for the law and it caught up to them.

 

Well, I could post something with the FMCSA about harassment, but since I have never seen it happen, would be hard to justify any comments that it is happening. Before the carrier I am with got totally on board with the e-log thing, I opted for them to put it in my truck, mostly to find out the truth about how they were, and if they were a hassle or hindered me, or cut my earnings, I could always pull my truck and go elsewhere. Well, 3 years later and I am still here. I have never heard of harassment from any other driver, nor experienced it. Besides, one thing I cannot figure out is why anyone would allow themselves to be harassed? it isn't like they were brought kicking and screaming and forced to drive a truck for a carrier that might harass them. Why would they then stay if it is happening? Someone can only be harassed if they choose to allow it. Period. There is no need for some government meddling. That will only make things worse for everyone. I find it hard to believe that folks who claim to be so macho for being truck drivers would sit back and let themselves be harassed. What a bunch of pansies. Get the truck back to a terminal, clean it out, hand in the keys, and go elsewhere. So simple.