This guest post from CDLLife reader Raylean offers a different perspective on the ELD mandate.
A Driver’s Wife Shares Her View On ELDs
“I know this is going to get so many negative comments and frankly, I don’t care. I am a wife, married to my trucker for almost 27 years.
He, like most, was upset when he first started using ELDs. He complained about hours and the money he would lose. He complained about everything about them, until he started using them. Unlike most truckers believe, believe, they did not come from Satan’s lair and they are not there for your demise. They are not there so Uncle Sam can keep an eye on you any more than the cellphone we all can’t live without. They are there to regulate your time. They are there to keep you and us safe.
I don’t like the fact that some truckers, (not all, but some), drive all day and half the night. I don’t like the fact that some dispatchers, FMs whatever you may call yours, know that if you run paper logs you can always “redo” tomorrow to make up for what you did today. I like the fact that my driver knows when he needs a break, because when he used paper logs he never took one, knows when he has been under that wheel long enough. Not that he isn’t intelligent enough to know that own his own but knowing that he can’t change that electronic log no matter what he has become more aware that he does in fact get tired. Yeah, he still hates when he is stuck at a shipper and or receiver too long and can’t make the delivery when HE wants to.
Now, what I love is the fact that he walks through that door when he’s supposed to. He is alive and healthy and isn’t bankrupt like he once thought. I love the fact that no matter what the fleet manager says, he will be parked for 34 hrs on his restart and will be good to go when his time is up. I haven’t found anything that I, as a wife, don’t like about ELDs. What I don’t like is the phone call saying he’s been in an accident and I have to get there as soon as possible. Or that he was driving so long he doesn’t stop to eat and he’s feeling bad. That he is sick and because that load had to be in BFE the next morning, he kept going.
Trucking is dear to my heart because it’s what my trucker loves to do and I know that means he has to be superhuman and anticipate everything that is going to go on around him no matter what kind of logs he has and that is scary. However what I love more than the trucking industry is MY TRUCKER and him making it back to me is more important than any issue that anybody has against ELDs.”