mcp 200 QC and E log (marten)

I was a Regional Coordinator, which is what they call their fleet managers, for Fleet 57 out of Lakeland.

 

I'm in WM dedicated account at Covenant. Was using paper log and never had any problem with it. BECAUSE my load planner is GREAT. She is a real professional and so is my dispatcher. They keep us busy, running 2500, 3000 and 3500 a week and never force us to run illegal... and I reset every week or every other week. But I know how to calculate my hrs, and take advantage of my stops to save my driving time and remain legal. I always keep good communication with my load planner and dispatcher, always give them update on my hrs, sometimes one week in advance when they start getting low. And sometimes my load planner asks me when I will be able to p/up a load before she schedules it.

SO, I got very upset when company installed MCP 200 in the truck.

Now I can't bobtail to run my errands during my reset or 10 hr break because company's rules are impossible for me to follow.

This MCP 200 is not user friendly. We have to navigate from one page to another and to another and to another to read, send msgs, do logs, check our hrs, enter load info, etc.... it's like taking 3 and 4 steps to accomplish something we could do with a pen, paper in one step.

I hate the timer. Now I have to change my status actual time, everytime, otherwise I will spend more time just editing and re-editing... and sometimes I forget or have to make some changes afterwards and re-edit.

Now my clock starts the min I do my pre-trip and have to show at least 5 min for that and take those min in consideration because if I go 1 min over my 11 or 14, elog will show violation and it will be right there for any officer to see. That would never happen with paper log.

The screen doesn't unfreeze until truck comes to complete stop and we can't read, type or change our status till screen unfreezes.

Virtual keybord is a pain to use. Sometimes I have to tap many times to enter a letter or sometimes letters don't enter at all or enters the wrong letter.... But I have to use virtual keyboard cause my GPS in tapped on top of Elog (wouldn't stay anywhere else) and I can't remove elog from holster to use the physical keyboard...
Then, when I type, have to type on ABC to enter letters, or 123 for numbers... back and forth, back and forth.... What a annoiance and waste of time....

When truck is moving all I can see is the blue DOT page showing how many hrs I have available (as if I didn't know...) or the main page with several buttoms (Messaging, HOS, Navigation that I never used and don't intend to, performance, etc) But can't use none of those until truck comes to complete stop

Yes, I have been saving a little bit of time (some mins) with Elog, but that is nothing and for all the hassle of dealing with it, I would rather stay on paper.

I hate this nanny-box.

 

Yes, it was a BIG shock for me too. On the second day using the thing, went one min over my 11 and 2 mins over my 14.... Got so mad when darn thing said I had violated HOS that I almost grabbed it and tossed it throught the window.
Now I feel like living in a prison, controlled by a timer that I have to remember to punch everytime I need to change my status, or stop truck or start moving... it's more stressful and a real hassle.

I want to move to another company with no elog but I am afraid the dsp and load planner will not be as good as mines...

 

We have the E-logs at Southern Cal and it took some getting used to. For a windows based operating system, it sure needs some tweaking like true multi tasking with the Alt/tab to jump between menus. For 12 years, I had been doing my logs on my laptop with a program called DDL. Never had any issues. But, I am finally getting used to the e-logs and can deal with them.

 

Forgot to mention, I left those scum suckers at marten as the e-logs were starting to come in and Tim Kohl started screwing over the drivers.

 

Well,I don't really like it either...been sitting at the same place for 3.25 hrs now...is my clock gonna stop??? O no...so now I got 8 hrs on my 14,and still have not driven but 100 hundred miles today with 650 to go...o yeah,the dock light is still green,lol. Keep it between the lines ya'll