Having already helped slash HOS violations, e-logs have also been a valuable tool in providing data that reveals “efficiencies in many operational areas that weren’t possible before,” according JJ Keller Marketing & Communications Specialist Becca Brown.
Even with some losses in efficiency due to digital HoS recordkeeping, Brown notes she’s not seen fleets bumping up their speed limiters to meet delivery deadlines now complicated by the restraints of an ELD.
Nearly half (48 percent) of KeepTruckin users surveyed by the company in December in cooperation with CCJ said they noticed a drop in driver productivity as a direct result of the ELD mandate, yet more than 81 percent say they did not adjust their speed limiters in 2018.
Navajo Express President Don Digby Jr., whose company implemented ELDs in July 2008, says there are better ways of getting more work done than simply trying to do it faster.
“Safety is paramount and a couple miles an hour isn’t really going to make up a lot of time,” he says.
Half of the 18.5 percent of respondents who opted to speed up last year seemingly agree that it doesn’t make a lot of difference. Fifty percent of the fleets who said they sped up in 2018 said they have noticed an improvement in driver productivity. A majority (67 percent) of those who sped up last year said they added between 3 and 7 mph.
“Where you make up a lot of time is coaching your drivers to keep the left-hand door closed,” Digby adds.
The majority of KeepTruckin respondents plan to enter 2019 at the same speed as last, with nearly 60 percent saying they are not likely to raise limited speeds next year – 22 percent say they are not even considering it. Only 4 percent say they “definitely will.”
“The problem is not the speed,” noted one respondent to the anonymous KeepTruckin survey, “it’s the time we lose in in traffic, and then I have to speed to try to recover the time.”