Electronic logs

Electronic logs will be mandatory in Canada by the end of 2017 for cross border and interprovincial trucking. The end of the days of creative writing .

Gets my vote, I didn’t run bent in the uk so I’m not prepared to do it here either. If you can’t make a living running legally you’re in the wrong job or living beyond your means. Regs are still the same just an easier way of keeping track of your hours, I’ve been on them for a couple of months now and think it’s much easier than paper logs.

If they are making a new law to bring in electronic logs then they should add on another one that outlaws the “cents per mile” pay structure. Hauliers will have no excuse not to pay by the hour like every body else. This is a great chance to finally make this a well paid and worthwhile job.

ChrisArbon:
If they are making a new law to bring in electronic logs then they should add on another one that outlaws the “cents per mile” pay structure. Hauliers will have no excuse not to pay by the hour like every body else. This is a great chance to finally make this a well paid and worthwhile job.

+1

I never liked the ten hours off between shifts when your on the road and using a sleeper too long…ok if you are going home at night I used to be wide awake and couldn’t move for a couple of hours. I worked for manteis in Calgary and we had electronic logs from the early 1990s .I now command a transit bus and the national safety code doesn’t apply.

russjp:

ChrisArbon:
If they are making a new law to bring in electronic logs then they should add on another one that outlaws the “cents per mile” pay structure. Hauliers will have no excuse not to pay by the hour like every body else. This is a great chance to finally make this a well paid and worthwhile job.

+1

+2

ChrisArbon:
If they are making a new law to bring in electronic logs then they should add on another one that outlaws the “cents per mile” pay structure. Hauliers will have no excuse not to pay by the hour like every body else. This is a great chance to finally make this a well paid and worthwhile job.

First the companies will have to figure out the time it really takes to do a job and rate it accordingly, rather than expect the driver to make up for any shortcomings and delays.

Not all companies, of course, the one we’re at will have no problem going electronic as creativity with logs is frowned upon and you have to be a special kind of stupid if you need to fiddle to get the job done here.

The thing that amuses me about this is the arguments against them, they have no foundation at all as the HOS laws are not changed at all, only the method of recording them. So basically anybody against them is confirming the argument that they are necessary in the first place.

I think it’s good that there is an almost two year period of notice, it gives plenty of time to get cpm outlawed as a method of paying drivers and to come up with a wage structure that benefits everybody, something like, I don’t know, maybe hourly pay and a night out payment, a salary or day rate, you know, like the whole of Europe has been doing for the last 30yrs or so…

I read somewhere that Australia is banning “Cents per mile” payments on the grounds of safety. It is just the sort of law that Canada’s new government would bring in too. Maybe it needs a minimum hourly pay rate as well. I was discussing this with some Bison chap on Facebook and he said that it would need a lot of consultation with their customers. I think that means the end of cheap freight for industry and the retail sector. But really it means that office staff will have to do a better job of keeping freight moving and keeping costs down. I can’t see that happening any time soon.

The thing that’s the biggest issue here is that the cpm system is the ultimate carrot and donkey method. The office bods know that come hell or high water a driver will achieve 12,000miles a month as that is what they need to do to get a reasonable wage, so there’s no incentive to improve efficiency.

For carriers it’s a simple way of doing it, they have fixed costs for office premises and staff, fixed costs for trucks and trailers, fixed costs for insurance and they just need to divide those into 144,000miles x the amount of trucks they run to figure out what that cost is per mile, add fuel costs per mile, which thanks to the fuel surcharge system is again almost a fixed cost, then add the cpm for the driver, maintenance and tyres and add a cpm for profit and there’s the rate.

This is why there are so many drivers logging 1155kms a day and this is why the elog is being brought in.

Glass partitions and driver debrief rooms have exacerbated this as there is no feedback from drivers, they’re too scared to mention the unmentionable that they have had to falsify their logs in order to complete a trip in the expected time, so all the office bod knows is how long PC Miler tells him it takes.

As Chris knows only too well, I spent a few months in the office and trying to explain to customers and brokers about how much time a job actually takes is something they don’t hear quite often.

On many occasions I had to get deliveries rebooked after the customer or broker worked out the times based on loading within an hour of the alloted pick up time and then starting from there with a fresh log for the day, running the speed limit everywhere and doing 11hrs driving at the speed limit within a 12hr day.

That’s how things are done over here because nobody has ever stood up and told them how things actually work in the real world.

If you tell people you run 100% legal on a Facebook page you get called a ■■■■■■ or a ■■■■■, they all think they’re rubber duck ffs.

I say let them bring it on, us lot are used to managing our time properly and we’re not afraid to stand up for ourselves, we will end up a highly sought after commodity within the first few months of 2018.

Been on elogs for 6 years now, at first I hated them, now I love them, then again we get paid very well compared to most and the CPM system doesn’t really have any effect. I have seen posts from drivers I know on Facebook who say they ‘Ain’t gonna do it’ and I give them the same answer, “Then get another job because you have no choice but to use them, if you have to break the law to earn a living you are in the wrong job”
That doesn’t go down very well but it’s true. My first company ‘St Ann Transportation’ changed to elogs about 5 years ago and actually asked me to help some of their drivers understand them, they are a small family run company but had set up a deal whereby if the drivers couldn’t get back in the same day and missed a run next day they compensated them with $150.00 for the lost day, which is a good deal for such a small firm. There are as always little cheats here and there, all these idiots who tell tales of trucks stopping when the hours run out are just ridiculous, when the time is up and you are stuck in traffic or otherwise you just carry on and when you eventually do stop you make a note in the ‘remarks / comments’ section. If you are stuck somewhere other than a truckstop and need food etc you can log out completely and run bobtail for services, if you have finished for the day and are not too far from home you are permitted to drop the trailer, log out and drive home but you must log back in when leaving your home next day of duty.
I agree that cpm is stupid and each and every driver should be on hourly pay. I know an English guy who drives for Cowans out of Baltimore and they have actually switched to hourly pay because of elogs, maybe others will follow ?

Something else I love about these elogs is that they calculate everything for you, especially the hours gained after just 8 hours in the sleeper, I could never figure that out correctly, you stop for the 8 hours and check and most times you can move off again until a 2 hour break is needed, we all know the amount allowed depends on what driving hours you had left when you stopped, but it works everything out so you can’t screw up, it knocks the ‘no driving after 14 hours from start of duty’ rule on the head, so you can carry on.

I must admit Pat after only using them for a couple of months that’s the bit I’m still getting my head round as it lets you go after 8 hours but still need another 2 in 24 hours, I guess it’ll click in time. I like how it shows exactly how long you have of your day left though

Exactly… This is a way around the 'no driving after 14 hours law, I love it, I wouldn’t have ha the nerve to try that before.

There is a way to drive after the 14th hour, a legal way too. Drive in Canada! 13hrs driving in a 16hr day, split breaks of 8hrs in the sleeper and 2hrs off duty in a 24hr day which can be taken in 30min segments. Here you can take 8hrs off every night as long as you accrue 2hrs off duty during the day.

Pat Hasler:
Exactly… This is a way around the 'no driving after 14 hours law, I love it, I wouldn’t have ha the nerve to try that before.

What way? Russ is talking about Canadian HOS regs and you’re talking about US regs so how is your elog letting you drive after the 14 hours in the US? I fully understand the 2+8 rules on a rolling 24 hour period (if my example below is correct, it may not be) in the US but what is this driving after the 14 hours rule your elog is allowing for? Or are you talking about Canadian HOS rules with regards your forays north?
Sorry, just confused as to whats been said here. As far as I’m aware, no driving may be permitted after 14 hours in the US, though you can remain on duty beyond 14 hours. In Canada you may not be on duty beyond the 16th hour or the 14th hour if the conditions Newmercman described above are not met.
Its my understanding that in the US, the 2+8 rule on the rolling 24 is as follows for an example. Log on duty at 6am, go off duty/sleeper berth at 12 noon until 2pm (must be a block of 2 hours minimum, unlike Canada) and then log off no later than 8pm, which is 14 hours, no extensions allowed. The next day you can choose to start after 8 hours due to the 2 hours the day before, so that gives a starting time 4am and due to the rolling 24 hour period and the requirement to show 10 hours off in any 24 hour period, you must log off duty/sleeper berth at or before 12 noon so that your 2 hour break commences no later than 24 hours prior to the matching period the day before. None of this however gets around the 14 hour duty period.

I never could figure it out either mate, but it does override that rule, you can stop after so many hours, take an 8 hour sleeper break and carry on even though 14 hours may have passed since starting work, it then gives you however many hours you had before the break started to carry on until the next 2 hour break is needed, take the 2 hours then you get a load more hours available, you don’t have to work out anything because the computer does it all for you, it’s all legal and you can keep doing it all week long.
It works by taking the 8 hour break first.

Pat Hasler:
I never could figure it out either mate, but it does override that rule, you can stop after so many hours, take an 8 hour sleeper break and carry on even though 14 hours may have passed since starting work, it then gives you however many hours you had before the break started to carry on until the next 2 hour break is needed, take the 2 hours then you get a load more hours available, you don’t have to work out anything because the computer does it all for you, it’s all legal and you can keep doing it all week long.
It works by taking the 8 hour break first.

Thats all simple stuff Pat, its not overriding the 14 hour rule, its starting a new one. If you’ve had two hours off during the day that is logged as a continuous block on off duty/sleeper berth and then when you stop for the night, within your 14 hour window and have 8 hours off, it resets the 14 hour window clock because 2+8 is 10 hours off and to comply with having 10 hours off in ANY 24hr period you have to stop in the next shift at or before the same time as the day before you had the 2 hours off, if you don’t and carry on then you’ll have had less than 10 hours off in a rolling 24 hour period. I do this on a paper log book quite a lot, especially when parking early at a crap hole like Vince Lombardi when I’m heading north to Canada and traffic the day before is dire and I’ve had a two hour break later in the day meaning I can make the border without needing to take the extra two, or if I can’t make the border I just stop in Maine and jump in the bunk for two hours.
Its still a 14 hour window though, no getting around that in the US as far as driving is concerned, though like I said, perfectly legal to stay on duty after 14 hours, just not allowed to drive.

Ok I think I’m getting this now lol, started at 4pm yesterday parked at 2330 and took 8 off so it’s now reset my 14 hours, so if I work continuously till my time is up it won’t reset till I’ve had 10 off. If I park up for 8 with time left it will only show the balance left so I take the other 2 hours before it resets to 14 again ?

russjp:
Ok I think I’m getting this now lol, started at 4pm yesterday parked at 2330 and took 8 off so it’s now reset my 14 hours, so if I work continuously till my time is up it won’t reset till I’ve had 10 off. If I park up for 8 with time left it will only show the balance left so I take the other 2 hours before it resets to 14 again ?

Canadian rules allow for more circumstances where less than 10 hours off can be taken. In Canada you could start work at 6am and drive 13 hours straight, park up at 7pm or whatever and still have 8 hours off by deferring two hours that are then added on to the next rest period. I’ve only used this rule once or twice in almost 7 years and I was always under the impression that the deferred two hours had to be added on to a 10 hour rest period the next night, making it 12 hours but others have told me otherwise and I don’t know the definitive answer, I’ve only ever used it on the night before getting home so my next rest period was always a 36 or more hours reset.

My above scenario with Pat is strictly talking about US regs and the 2+8 rule which resets the 14 hour window, though there is always a requirement to have 10 hours off in ANY rolling 24 hour period, which is where it vastly differs from Canada. It also differs from Canada in that it has to be a block period of two hours, whereas in Canada you can have 4 periods of 30 minutes or any combination you like totaling two hours so long as each segment is 30 minutes or more. In those cases where you’ve got two hours off during the shift, you can have 8 hours off that night without deferring anything and that resets the clock so start again the next day without having to take any time off to keep up with a rolling 24 hour period like in the US. In Canada its a mid night to midnight reference period, in the US it isn’t, its a continuously rolling period of 24 hours where at any one time you must be able to show 10 hours off in the 24 hours directly preceding the moment of which you are currently at, either as a full 10 hours or an 2+8 so long as the 2 is paid back within 24 hours on the next chart so maintain 10 hours in any 24 hour period.

I’m sorry I’m not explaining this better and there is going to be more to the Canadian rules that I’m missing out or don’t even know about as I never use it so I’m sure Newmercman will clarify all that stuff much better than I’m able to.

Don’t ask me, I rarely do 13hrs driving and I am now sitting typing this 13hrs after parking up last night and I haven’t pulled the curtains back yet lol