How bout them E-Logs.....Anyone, Anyone...Bueller....Bueller

My last job that fired me was going to them and I think they knew I couldn't adapt.I'm in a whole lot better place now anyway my new company has the same benefits but only 30 trucks,no safety department,no quallcoms,no check calls,I fuel when and where I choose and have access to 300.00 a day for expenses on my fuel card.I'm driving a Peterbilt instead of a junky FL.so sometimes it's a good thing getting run off.

 

95% of the time I'm just fine with them. msg 58 and a number from 1 to 4 all day, no rulers, cities, etc. They make it very black and white for operations too. Either I have the time or I don't, no more "can you make it fit".

5% of the time they suck sweat off monkey testicles.When cutting it close on time to get somewhere it pushes you to drive faster then you want. Where as before with the paper log, If i got somewhere a few minutes over because of traffic I could just fix it, not now. You have to choose between being less safe or violating compliance. Not good.

 

Er, not being a ########, but how do you drive faster than you want in a Knight truck?

My problem with elogs is them always dropping out of coverage, and then having to edit them. Might as well run a paper log at the same time, but I ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to do that if they require elogs.

That's their problem, not mine, and if they want to fire me, fine. See ya in court, baby.

 

Seattle area at 5pm. Nuff said?

I was talking about pushing it in heavy traffic.

 

i've always preferred to drive during the vampire hours. i can crank out the most mileage within 11hrs and be off the road before traffic really begins to slow things down. the only slowdowns i ever encounter are the late night road construction zones and the occasional nasty wreck that blocks a lane or two.

 

Vampire Trucking is the way to go. Less traffic headaches, and always plenty of parking at Truck Stops.. Especially if you time yourself to pull in after the morning exodus.

One of the things I learned when I was in training with the "outfit" I work for.. Nothing SUCKS more than pulling into a truck stop late at night.. almost out of hours, tired as hell, and no place to park.

Or the one place to park is between a couple of nice custom Petes/Kw's owned by Bubba and Meathook. No pressure though........

 

hell yeah, i love pulling into truck stops after the mass exodus. i even love it more since i fuel up during the vampire hours and most of the drivers are asleep, therefore, the fuel island lines at any given pilot are almost non-existent. i can usually pull into a fuel pump, enter all the info, fill the tanks, or take in the designated amount, pull forward, scan the paperwork, and be on my way within 15mins.

 

Well, if you are the type of person that loves your hand held as well as receiving constant hugs and kisses from your dispatcher, and being micro-managed twenty-four seven, then electronic logs aren't so bad.

For me personally, I love using my own head to figure things out. That goes for routing, fueling, etc. With every "ME TOO!" trucking company jumping on the elog bandwagon, truck drivers are slowly being turned into underpaid, overworked robots who will not be able to think for themselves (this is especially true for newbies starting out in the trucking field). But unfortunately since no one had the balls to fight the legislation in the past, and with more idiots wrecking their trucks and getting into accidents with four-wheelers, then elogs are going to become an industry standard in the future.

Now, where can I find the lube?

 

Already found some problems with the system, enough that I have logged out of the system and returned to paper logs. If they give me any grief, I'll tell them they system is broken and they can fix it on their own time, or have the DOT come in and have them flatten reformat and reinstall.

 

Good luck with THAT. The system will not accept paper logs after the first of next month. A friend suggested the same thing to me about returning to paper logs, informing the DOT, etc etc.

I'll figure that I will keep playing the game, and hoping everything improves. The worst is when the system loses track of the satellites when the truck has been off for awhile, and puts you on line 4 automatically. Fixing your logs becomes a very interesting hassle then.