Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/611028
VOICES 8 | Overdrive | December 2015 We recently spent the night 67 miles from the house in a sketchy rest area off of I-75, and I acted like a jerk. Probably not a shocker to any regular reader, but I'd like to publicly apolo- gize and thank those who are out there doing it right, even when it sucks. George is on electronic logs. He actually doesn't mind it because he's always run legal. He learned a lot about following rules in the military. If he commits to something, he's going to do it right, because his word is really all he has on this earth. That doesn't make him perfect – it makes him conscientious, and if he has control over a situation, he'll probably choose to follow the rules. After all, ELDs aren't the problem – it's the lack of flexibility in the hours of service. Until someone who actually has driven a truck in has something to do with an hours rulemaking, that issue will be ignored. So after four wasted hours due to detention, Friday traffic, an accident scene and 97 construction zones, George realized we weren't going to make it home legally and parked at the rest area. This caused much alarm from the lump in the bunk. "What are you doing?" "I'm parking." "Why?" "Because we're an hour from the house and I only have 25 minutes left on the clock." "What?" "I'm not going to push it. It's rain- ing, there's another construction zone, and I know there's parking here. We're stopping for a 10-hour break." I did the thing 4-year-olds do where they make themselves perfectly stiff and they slide off of whatever surface they happen to be on, into a puddle on the floor, where they cry and pitch a fit. Not really – I just rolled over and refused to acknowledge him, which was probably a better choice, although much less emotionally satisfying. He remained calm and considerate. "Do you need to get out? I'll walk you to the bathroom." "I'm not leaving this truck until I'm at my house." "It's going to be a while." "I'd rather peel my eyelids off like onion skins." "I know, baby. That's how it is sometimes. I can't screw up my logs. I've never had a violation, I need to keep it like that." "I hate your logs. And your BOLs." And we laughed, because when his Qualcomm used to talk to him, the lady would say, "George, you have missing BOLs," and you know what that sounded like, and I would call him Lance Armstrong, so at least we went to sleep laughing about something. (Sorry, Lance, that was probably mean, but it was pretty funny at the time.) Sometimes, following the rules is hard. Wendy Parker chronicles her journey on the road with her owner-operator husband, George, in the George and Wendy Show blog on OverdriveOnline.com. Scan the QR to read more from her on your phone or tablet. Obeying the e-log master " I respect y'all for being safe-minded, but those e-logs really bite. I can't see myself parking an hour away from home if I'm not tired. Hope I am never forced to put one of those things in my truck. It will be butting heads with me on occasions. " — RC, via OverdriveOnline.com " The good, the bad, the e-logs. I thought e-logs were supposed to make trucking safer and better? If so, then where's our reward? Something to the tune of an extra hour of drive time would be nice, because as Wendy got to experience, we often shut down early for fear of the potential obstacles ahead of us. " — Maddog Trucker, via OverdriveOnline.com "George is on electronic logs. He actually doesn't mind it because he's always run legal."