Old school versus Elogs

I park my truck at the shop and let them fix it. Id much rather pay for everything then to have to join the company driver circus and listen to the whims of deskjockeys and beancounters.

 

I am on elogs and ours does the same thing, log in for pretrip start driving and it will switch you to driving. Same if stuck in traffic it will go to on duty not driving. Only time I have run paper is if the truck they put me in the elogs are not setup for my company (tank lines) and set for the other(trucking) and it is a pain to do paper for me anyway.

If you log OUT of the system and not off the system removed you from that truck. At least ours does. I log OUT every night just so that does not happen but also I don't know if dispatch will give my truck out if I am not in the seat.

Yep I had to take the written test again to get grandfathered in. Now I am sure if any one could not read the test they could have asked for an oral test. My dad could not read & write and when ever he needed to take a test he would ask for the oral. He did not have a CDL but did hold a lot of other permits & license. Funny he could read a map and look up body parts for cars but think he looked at pictures and matched the numbers and copied the name?

Only thing I don't like of elogs is taking the 30 min. break when the company wants you to so you don't have to take a 2nd one in 14 hr. Also being 15 min from yard and running out of time. Hate to use 15 min of the 16 hr rule and not be able to use it later in the week if you break down and really need it. I am local, return to yard each day but run more than the 100 air mile rule out.

Someone also said of scale master calling your stops to see the time you were there and crossing it to your log. This can happen on either log and if you start playing with paper logs you are bound to get cought in a lie.
Just my .02
Dave ----

 

Oh forgot to add I had a level 1 a few weeks back and when ask about logs I told him I was on Elog. He asked what one I told him peoplenet, we tried to look thru it, it is new to me so I did not know how to pull up everything he asked, but he was happy on what he saw.
I also told him I have blank paper logs if elog goes down and he was good with that too.
Dave ----

 

They can pry my log book from my cold dead hands...or, I'll change. There's always a way to cut corners. Truckers are, and always have been resourceful people.

 

I talked to a woman that works for a trucking company with 30 trucks, she said the boss is having a hard time hiring truck drivers, hardly anyone knows how to fill out log books.

 

The real advantage of electronic logs is that large companies with 50 or more trucks benefit, saving time and money because everything is stored in a main frame computer network and available for download 24/7, where the paper logs must be handled manually, let me put it in simple terms, If Swift and all the mega carriers combined generated 500,000 lpaper logs per day, how many people would it take to process that much data compared to a E-log stored in the cloud?

As for the single truck owner that still needs to run hot loads for the "Broker", best to stay on loose leaf.

 

I have dropped trips and mileage with the best of them, but it isn't the old days. I like the e-logs, so long as the company you work for keeps ya rolling.

 

My boyfriend have been on paper everysince he started driving trk 20 some yrs ago,he just got put on elogs a month ago.He had to because his job got eliminated Hes still with the company but there will be no more paper logs.He still learning and ask me questions but for the most part he doesn't mind it.Another driver is having a tough time with the change and dispatch told him they were going to start charging him 50.00 for every log sheet he hands in so now hes on elogs.You can still make money on elogs.If you can't then somebody is doing something wrong.You might as well learn them now because before long everybody will be on elogs.

 

making money on elogs isn't the problem.

The problem, is not making enough.

 

The biggest issue with the switch to elog is not going to be with the drivers, it is going to be with the load planners and dispatchers. There is a different mindset needed to adapt. That three stop load that has been run for years that takes about 14.5 hrs to compete, will no longer be possible without off duty driving or log manipulation, and the issue there is there will be an electronic trail of any and all alterations.

Going to put some drivers in some compromising situations.

I was asked to ODD at my last carrier and refused, headed to the drop yard instead and got 5 miles down the road and pulled over for a level III... Would not have been good to be on the off duty line with a running reefer in a public roadway. Yes, he did want to look at the last seven days graphs.