New HOS rules?

Elogs will automatically put you on line 3 after the truck starts moving, and when you stop will put you on line 4. There are certain limits that you must exceed for that to happen... usually set in terms of moving certain distances and/or exceeding certain speeds for a certain time for this to happen. Pulling the brake handle will definitely get you from line 3 to line 4. Editing comes in because that line 4 time may actually be line 1 or 2. Like when you stop for the night, you don't want to be logging line 4, but the drive line, line 3, is something that is set (supposedly) in stone. Nobody should get to alter it.

Drivers can alter line 1, 2 and 4 as much as they like, until they "approve" the logs. That's the digital equivalent of signing a paper log page, after that you can't change anything. At my carrier, the only folks with access to the database is the logs department. Drivers and dispatchers don't have the access to alter it. That's the way it should be, and no amount of pleading should get anything changed on that drive line.

Carriers that let dispatchers into the elogs database are asking for trouble, because we all know how those guys work. If they need a load moved, the unscrupulous will make a drivers hours available to get the load done in violation of the law. The only difference with paper logs is now the dispatcher can just falsify a drivers logs from headquarters, instead of coercing the driver to run the load illegally. Since GPS is hooked into this, someone who is inspecting an elogs database needs to be able to detect discrepancies in hours logged vs the timestamps on the GPS position tags.

I'm not sure the flatfeet are smart enough to catch that all the time myself.