'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.

[Nancy Long]

Like this topic and so many discussions relating to it. E'log improves reporting accuracy with near real-time monitoring of drivers’ hours. Also help in accessing driver availability, driver-management and safety-audit reports.