(WOW) SPEEDING ELD? ELD QUESTIONS AND EVERYTHING ELSE (WOW)

Back in the paper days, the guidance from FMCSA (or Maybe CVSA, I don't remember for sure.) was that any point to point driving time that was more than 5mph under the speed limit was automatically considered falsification.

Which was then and is now utter BS. There's plenty of places out west where you could maintain an average speed very near the speed limit, especially on longer driving periods when empty.

 

we’re you around when paper logs were a thing?

Dot would pull out a calculator and a map and try to figure out how you made a 6 hour drive in 3 hours. Lol

essentially what OP is saying because the speed limit is 55mph and if he’s driving 65mph and gets pulled into the scale and they see he made a 5 hour run in 4 hours. Would they break it down question him and cite him for speed. In a sense they can if it’s not reasonable but will they? More than likely not ever because they don’t look that deep into it with eld these days.

 

The DOT shouldn’t have access to speed unless you’re involved in a crash at which point you’ll have a bigger issue

I do know your company can see your speed
I was once running out west in an 80mph posted zone and although I wasn’t breaking the law I did get a call from the companies safety dept and all they said was I can see you’re out west in a faster posted zone but asked if I’d back it down a little

 

As my comment states. You don’t need to see physical numbers to calculate speed of a truck it’s right there in the driving line. If you drive 70mph in Cali from Stockton to wheeler ridge( where the grapevine scale is) and it shows you got there in 3 hours but it’s a 5 hour drive at 55mph. The only explanation would be speeding. And well getting a speeding ticket would be the only solution.

 

Correct
In a perfect scenario that would be the case and you would have to maintain that speed the entire distance

But you will have other factors that could bring the average speed back down
Such as Traffic, A delivery on the way etc

 

Log book speeding violation were present for a long time before ELDs. They just compare average speed on a distance shown in the log book with a max speed limit posted on that road.
Those are not the same as moving violations, when a cop catches you with a radar reading.
Often, the log book speeding violations were not the result of actual speeding but log book falsifying when drivers wanted to squeeze extra time out of the logs.
The ELDs can show real speeding events, e.g. Keep Truckin. They will show how much over, where and for how long the event occurred. They don't show it in the drivers' app nor in the logs prepared for a DOT inspection but do show it in the Administrator's dashboard. It's just a matter of time before they include them on the DOT inspection mode. I can imagine that insurance companies may want to have a look at that too - how many speeding events occurred in a fleet operation or for a individual driver. Sooner or later, you may have no choice but do the double nickel through Mojave desert.

We are not there yet, or so I hope. In order to issue a moving violation citation, there is more to it than just an ELD report. For instance, a highway patrol radar needs to be periodically certified as calibrated and accurate.

 

When my uncle picked up his truck that I eventually bought from him, they inspected him at Grand Junction. They told him he he had to be speeding because he was close to the speed limit. He said, or at least I imagine he said "I'm bobtailing, you idiot!"

 

Yes, I can attest to getting a citation for a calculated speed violation. Happened long before ELDs. Scale master in Lima, MT, wrote me for a portion of my trip in CA.

His recommendation for dinner was solid though.

And I got new batteries for my calculator.

 

The biggest concern would be a fatality crash, even if it was not your fault. The victim's lawyers will have discovery access to the full 6 months of your logbook. They will go through the entire 6 months looking for any and all violations and perceived violations, which would include time to distance ratios exceeding 55 in California. From there they would be able to prove you should not have been at the location of the fatality crash had you been following the speed limit 3 days ago or even 3 months ago for example. So therefore they would be able to assign a percentage of guilt upon the truck driver and the motor carrier and extract millions of dollars in lawsuits. At the end of the day, the extra pennies you make from speeding are definitely not worth it.

 

Yet one more example of why we so badly need tort reform in this country. You wanna talk about making the economy explode? Remove the artificial drag of trial lawyers...