'E' logs.

[Pat Hasler]

How many of you are using 'E'logs ?

I was worried about the company I work for starting us on them 2 years ago but 2 years has made me very for them in some ways and slightly against them in others. I had heard so many stories and old wives tales about them, most of which are just not true.

I thought I would just point out the good, the bad and the totally untrue.

1) "Elogs shut the truck off when you run out of hours" .....

2) When they had that bad weather in CT last month all the Elog trucks were stuck for hours"

All of these tales are total rubbish ! No way anywhere does an 'E'log shut down any truck, reduce the power of have any effect on the performance of any truck in any way. When you are 1 hour away from your 14 you get a 'BEEP' to warn you, another at 30 minutes, 15 minutes, 5 minutes and every minute counting down. If you run out of hours it just tells you that you are in violation and you still carry on untill you find a suitable parking place, you can then make a note to say why you ran over your time and as long as it is not a daily event nothing is usually reported. If you wanted to you can even log out of the log, carry on without anything happening but the later is ilegal. The main point is that no 'E'log on any truck will shut you down if you go over 14 hours.

Regional drivers will even get 2 extra hours added every 6 days if the log is set at 'short haul'

The bad side....

Once you log on duty you are committed to go and on a count down of 14 hours, you can't set out then change your mind and alter your log and start a new sheet but ! ..... My particular 'E'log is set to not change your mode if you drive less than 9/10th of a mile, if on sleeper or off duty it is infact possible to drive through a city stopping at traffic lights within 9/10ths of a mile without tripping the log to on duty and as you know it can take any amount of time to travel through built up areas and therefore you can actually save all that time (again ilegal) but I know those who do it.

The good side is DOT tend to leave you alone if they know you use 'E'logs, I suspect this is because most of them don't know how they actually work but know they can't be falsified (yeah right).

Another plus is that when you are out of time no matter how pushy your dispatcher is you are off duty and he can't argue with it.

My company insist we run legal even if loads are 10 hours late because you ran out of hours, the first thing any dispatcher or manager asks us is 'Do you have the hours ?' or 'Make sure you take the 10 hours off'

 

Split breaks .... If ever in the past you have used the split 2 and 8 hour rest system and messed up calculating when to have another break there is no worry with 'E'log ! ... it works it all out for you, you can have 2 hours, end the day with 8 hours and when you check your hours (can be done without logging on duty) it tells you how many hours you have before taking another 2 hours and then after that 2 hours your time is extended again.

 

Sorry if I bored you all but I hear so many fools spreading gossip about a really good system. I hope it set a few mind at ease about something that on day we will all have to use.

[Bill McQueen]

Great post Pat,

I think E-Logs will be mandatory within the next few years.

It's nice to hear input from someone who is actually using E-Logs.

Thanks Pat.

[Lorne]

Thanks for the info Pat.

I can see how they can be useful.

Lorne

[phil thompson]

our company has said it will be going on elogs soon let me ask u a question sometime when at a customer i put my self in a 1 status then end up taking like 5hrs to get loaded if i decide to stay the other 5 hrs will that reset me for a new shift? even thow i didnt go into the 2 staus?

[Pat Hasler]

No ! If you think you are going to be quite some time loading or offloading you can go into off duty mode from the start, if you are there more than 2 but less than 10 it only counts as 2 or 8, if you plan on staying for 10 hours anyway then go to off duty anyway right from the start.

I don't know which e'log system your company is going to use so the terms 1, 2 and 3 etc could mean any of the modes, if you are referring to '1' as rest then it would contribute so long as you do not change the made again for the 10 hours you are there, if you were to change after 5 hours, then change back again it would mean starting another 10 hours.

We use the 'Peoplenet' elog system and the actual charts cannot be seen by us or DOT, they have to be requested from company HQ. We can see a detailed run down of hours used and available etc.

phil thompson said:

our company has said it will be going on elogs soon let me ask u a question sometime when at a customer i put my self in a 1 status then end up taking like 5hrs to get loaded if i decide to stay the other 5 hrs will that reset me for a new shift? even thow i didnt go into the 2 staus?

[Pat Hasler]

One more helpfull point..... Always go 1 minute over whatever off duty or sleeper time you take, so 2 hours + 1 min or 10 +1 etc, if you just log exactly 2, 8 or 10 hours the log only shows 1 hour 59 mins and so on, it will alway register one minute less and so your break will be invalid and have to start over.

[phil thompson]

ahh good to know so as i understand if i was in a 1 status which we call off duty not 2 status which is sleeper birth it would count as the same and taking 10hrs +1min lol would give me a full day of work nice and as i understand i can drive a short distance with out tripping the e log to driving status ie: from dock to parking lot on same property i guess i can live with that thanks for your input

[Pat Hasler]

The short distance on our elog is less than 9/10 of a mile, stopping for 1 second resets that distance, this is set that way because its quite often you can be parked off duty and asked to move to provide access to somewhere. I was once parked at a rest area on US17 near Elmira and woken up by a DOT officer who asked me to move to half a mile away so he could set up a check area, when I told him I was on elog and in the sleeper he told me I would be ok for that distance and he was right.

phil thompson said:

ahh good to know so as i understand if i was in a 1 status which we call off duty not 2 status which is sleeper birth it would count as the same and taking 10hrs +1min lol would give me a full day of work nice and as i understand i can drive a short distance with out tripping the e log to driving status ie: from dock to parking lot on same property i guess i can live with that thanks for your input

[phil thompson]

hmm so in stop and go traffic i mite want to go into a off duty status too interesting thanks for the info gives me a little info before its put in my truck all i know is i am not paying to have it installed i figure the company paid to install the sallite they will probably pay for that too next thing u know i will have to provide a seat for a dot to ride along with me to make sure i am doing the job right lol

[Steven G Richardson]

has a NEW driver on here, On my 2nd week with E-LOGS i ran 3100 miles in 64 hrs. And had a 5 hr wait at walmart in Miss.

3 out of 4 loads that week was Drop and Hook. man was i tired, check was over 1,000$ for a week :D

I'm learning a lot with these E-LOGS, and its ALSO FASTER filling out then a reg log book. 

From a 33 year OLD school driver, I say E-LOGS aint so bad :-)

 

Rooster 20056

EPES Transport

[Pat Hasler]

Phil, I have sat in stop and go traffic on I-91 for and hour in the past and switched to on duty, I just watched that I stopped for a second or two before 9/10 of a mile.

phil thompson said:

hmm so in stop and go traffic i mite want to go into a off duty status too interesting thanks for the info gives me a little info before its put in my truck all i know is i am not paying to have it installed i figure the company paid to install the sallite they will probably pay for that too next thing u know i will have to provide a seat for a dot to ride along with me to make sure i am doing the job right lol

[Pat Hasler]

Yet another good point to Elogs .... how many of you are sike of having to write down the miles every state line you cross or toll road you enter ?

I havn't done that in 4 years, the log is linked to a GPS system that automatically enters the mile at each point for you ... keep on moving LOL

[Pat Hasler]

Our ELOGS have recently changed, the log will switch to driving 9/10ths of a mile from starting off even if we stop for a few seconds, we can't drive and stop for a few seconds anymore, they have been set to keep of duty only if we go less than 9/10ths then stop for at least 5 minutes which sucks.