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

It's funny you should say that.
My sister did a semester of school in Denmark. She met new people and they asked what Canada is like. She said it is nothing to commute an hour to work every day, or drive several hours for family events, etc. They couldn't believe it. They use their cars sparingly compared to how we use cars.

I have always wondered why in Europe where things are much closer together, they use high speed rail and other public transport and everyone uses it. Here we have greater distance and we do not have high speed rail (I am talking 300+kmh trains) and we mostly drive everything everywhere. It would make more sense to me if we had that stuff also.

 

What was he doing during those five hours at the shipper? I would be on Google Maps looking for a place to park for the night.

 

High speed rail is a craw in my neck. Europe and Japan and now China (Who pressurizes their freaking mountain trains going high enough to need it... sheesh...) fly between cities so fast that aircraft and airports are obselete in any weather. When it snows, they still got through, even the UK uses steam on their mainline that did get through when desiels failed in the worst of winter storms. Not very many trains were by steam mind you. Not like the FRA laws here in America coupled with insurance that pretty much chokes them.

We don't have high speed here in America. There is a bit of Amtrack in the NE that thinks 125 is fast. Well.. when they get to 125 and you are standing track side at the bush river crossing, you do not hear them coming. That is what kills people near the tracks. They are there and on you before you know it. 9-11 has made sure that two particular roads to that specific bridge is closed off pernamently so that terrorists wont car bomb the thing.

I think they are hitting 300 in Europe now with some of their trains. 300 under electric or over 500 kmh is so fast that the carbon layered pantographs bounce dozens of yards between contact with the power supply above. It has to gather enough juice fast enough to feed the engines between large disconnects at those speeds. 300 is #### fast by rail.

Why arent we doing 300? Hell if I know. If we could, trucking might be put out of business when freight gets from say Port of Long Beach to Jersey overnight 400 containers at a time.

 

Today on the freeway near LA I heard an old timer on the CB complaining about another driver. Sure enough the next thing he says is “E-logs” lol. That’s crept into the brain of every trucker out there. It’s to blame for everything.

 

I would love to have the advocates of “preplanning” ride with me for a week to show me how to do it.
I get a kick out of all these eloggers and their bs. They want all of us so called outlaws on elogs. “It is so easy to go by the rules as we do it every day.” Then they tell you how they cheat while moving at a shipper or receiver. Or log split sleeper while you actually were backing to a door or standing in line 30 minutes waiting to get paperwork signed.
Listen to them and they will have you believing there is safe parking near ever shipper or receiver.
Take your bs and elogs and put it where the sun don’t shine. I am tired of hearing your stupidity and hypocrisy.
Another bs item. Park early to avoid the problems elogs create. You pay me just compensation for throwing away my time and I’ll park whenever you say.
Scheeple. Just a bunch of dang scheeple.

 

Do you like being on call 24/7 for free ? Don't you think your time has value ? Companies and driver that choose to give that up for free can. Now they will be forced to stop at 14 or 70 hours. So they will see what giving that time up for free is really like.

On paper those people could keep driving to make up for not demanding detention pay or better rates per mile. Now the will be forced to stop and they probably can't afford that. So they will have to charge more or go out of business.

So why do drivers and companies think sitting for free is a good idea? My time has value and it's not unlimited. I'm not on call 24/7 for free

 

Why?

Becuase of our form of government, their government can force people to do things ours can not. It doesn't matter if it is the U.K., France or Denmark - the government taxes the crap out of them to change thier behavior or just tell them take a train.

The other thing is we don't have a real market. Amtrak outside of the northeastern corridor, loses money every day. Also airlines make it easy to fly somewhere.

 

Keep in mind most of Western Europe has a population density akin to the NE - just about the onlybplave where Amtrak makes a decent profit.

In the 1950s the US invested in roads, Europe did rails as they rebuilt their infrastructure. Then again as @Ridgeline stated Europe has a larger sense of community interest then we do. They recognize that sometimes paying for something that doesn't directly impact you is, in long term, in your best interest - except for the Thatcher years.

 

I hear this a lot...
Do drivers with paper log books log every minute sitting at a dock on duty?

 

I hope not. Not on paper. Conserve the hours.

Now with the Elogs, it seems there is no choice now eh? Im pretty certain there will be very fundamental changes coming when everyone says to shipper, sorry im out of hours now see you tomorrow and leave the freight on the dock.