How long till this starts hitting expedited carriers?

[BigStickJr]

I'd be inclined to hide the paper log and show the e-log.
It will be legal, shouldn't get you any stupid tickets for silly errors, and they used to not look at them very closely.
The paper log I would leave out of reach, out of sight. And copy it as close to exactly as you can at the end of your day or beginning of the next. If found tell them it's a training device only. That is why it's not in the driver's reach.

 

[tknight]

Who yA training said the dot cops to the solo driver and whys your name in it? If mandatory slogs why do you even have a book? I'm sure the elogs will print out records maybe even email them to or ld to a usb stick

 

[coalminer]

I use the big road app on my phone and I have never had an officer want me to print out or email/fax the logs, they look at them on the screen, go back a few days and then hand it back to me. And the logs are automatically backed up on the server end so if something should happen to your phone/tablet, just download the app on your new device, sign in and you are good to go.

When it comes to tax time, I went on the website and created a pdf of the entire year, then printed them out 4 days on each side of the paper, the whole year is nice and neat in one little 3 ring binder.

Oh forgot to say they do have a device that connects to the truck to be compliant with the new regulations.

 

[jelliott]

We have drivers ask for print outs. Generally they want you to produce the mandatory instruction card with the elogs. If you don't have it they give you a violation. Silliest rule ever that has nothing to do with safety.

 

[DollarSign]

Heard today some people O/O who drive sprinters and cargo vans for a expedited company lost there vans today due to can't make there payments. I really feel bad for those people. It's really sad.

 

[blizzard2014]

I see nothing wrong with having both electronic and paper logs as long as the RODS match ( rounding accepted on paper version of course ). Assuming the e-log mandate does in fact go into effect, I will absolutely continue to run a paper log as well. Doesn't mean I'm going to show it to a DOT officer, but, frankly I see it as necessity for several reasons. 1. "Gadget" failure 2. Tax records 3. Reference information

The e-logs just need to have a program were they can either be printed out once a week, or sent to your email via a PDF file format. That would eliminate the need for a backup logbook right?

 

[blizzard2014]

Heard today some people O/O who drive sprinters and cargo vans for a expedited company lost there vans today due to can't make there payments. I really feel bad for those people. It's really sad.

Can you PM me with the name of the company? Too many carriers are going out of business. This sucks.

 

[Greg]

The e-logs just need to have a program were they can either be printed out once a week, or sent to your email via a PDF file format. That would eliminate the need for a backup logbook right?

I'm on elogs here at LEAM, and we are required to carry paper logs as a back up. If the Qualcomm should stop working, you got to have a paper log to run with until the QC gets repaired.

This does NOT mean that both can be used at the same time though.

 

[ATeam]

For income tax and other reasons, it is desirable for drivers to have historic log info archived. This would be no chore at all if the companies were willing to take it up a notch.

Why not make it such that, in addition to what they already do, the electronic devices automatically post each day's log to an account in the cloud that the driver owns and has full access to, and that the driver will retain access to even if he or she leaves that carrier? Why not make it possible to download that data into a spreadsheet that enables a driver to view, slice and dice it any number of ways for charting and analysis? Why not make it possible for a driver to access that data and download any log day or range of days at a time?

This would cost the carriers nothing except bandwidth to transmit the updates (tiny upload). The cloud space would be owned by each driver and that can be obtained free by any driver who cares to set up a cloud storage account for that purpose (Google, Microsoft, DropBox, etc.).

Granted, carriers have no interest in providing anything that might be useful to a driver after he or she leaves one's carrier, but so what? Why not do something because it costs almost nothing and it's the right thing to do?

 

[Slo-Ride]

Sounds like Load one provides copy's if requested, so it has to be doable.
On the cloud thing, would that not involve giving the carrier access to your cloud account for them to upload to it? Never been to my cloud so I don't know what it takes to access it.
(Email is good enough for me or let me d/load from their site.)

 

[ATeam]

...On the cloud thing, would that not involve giving the carrier access to your cloud account for them to upload to it?

If cloud privacy is a concern, establish a second cloud account that serves only to receive the daily uploads.

 

[jelliott]

Sounds like Load one provides copy's if requested, so it has to be doable.
On the cloud thing, would that not involve giving the carrier access to your cloud account for them to upload to it? Never been to my cloud so I don't know what it takes to access it.
(Email is good enough for me or let me d/load from their site.)

Yes we do.

 

[Greg]

Sounds like Load one provides copy's if requested, so it has to be doable.
On the cloud thing, would that not involve giving the carrier access to your cloud account for them to upload to it? Never been to my cloud so I don't know what it takes to access it.
(Email is good enough for me or let me d/load from their site.)

I download mine monthly from QC (Omni Tracs) website. Easy to do.

 

[Dave Sullivan]

Thank you Mr Elliot for your original post. After 35 years in the trucking biz I have seen so many people and companies come and go very little surprised me, but I am amazed at the owner/operaters and small companies who tell me " I HAVE GREAT CREDIT " but no cash reserves, the lesson be ready for lean times.

 

[crich]

This brings up a question about running 2 log books. One being a elogs and the other being paper. How legal is this? If both logs are not activated the truck/driver is in violation and gets a call from the office stating so. Now talking to the office they say the elogs don't enter into the picture because they are there for training purposes only.. Talking to a DOT officer at home he states training is to be done prior to actively being placed on elogs and if he sees both logs in use at the same time there will be a bunch of violations issued to all involved. Who do I believe here?
(Not only is it time consuming but its a royal pain to match both logs so they read the same. And nearly impossible to do)

I run elogs. its my understanding we have a year to try out different providers. how could it be a violation if both logs match? how do you activate a paper log? I see problems with the the tele trac system and not sure thats who I will stay with. but my elogs are activated but there is a light that comes on if your system has a glitch and it states when light is lit driver must maintain a paper log. so I would have to disagree with that dot officer. some of the problems I am haveing with tele trac is when I log out of the system on the tablet it tells me me log out accepted then when I go out to the truck the next time maybe 3 days later and log back in it will show me as being on duty the whole time I was away from truck. the tracking works great. the route is not always a truck route and I would say they have a long way to go before it a perfect system.