As the world of trucking evolves paper logbooks are becoming almost obsolete. The new CSA 2010 safety- scoring process and the pending EOBR (electronic onboard recorder) regulations are creating opportunities in which paper drivers’ logbooks are unnecessary. The new innovations of EOBR make this device hard to ignore. CR England is one of the companies that has made the switch over to electronic logbooks. Dustin England the director of safety for CR England said that the company moved to using EOBR’s in 2009 for several reasons. As a company that trains its own drivers these reasons included making logbooks easier to maintain for beginning drivers, reducing log book violations and making logs easier to manage.
Gaining access to full real time information was also a benefit of making the switch. So far, England reports that the switch has been a success. Service violation rates as well out-of-service rates for drivers have declined dramatically. Also after the switch, fatigued driving became their lowest CSA basic. Switching to electronic logbooks has made the company more efficient and helped them to achieve a higher standard of excellence. However, along with the benefits there are also some concerns. Defense Requirements for truck fleets can change according to the CSA 2010 in which plaintiffs’ attorneys might try to use accessible data to prove a culture of recklessness. The problem comes when the scores become self-distorting and because preventable and unpreventable incidents are treated the same, warnings gets the same amount of attention as actual tickets. With these beginning concerns businesses simply need to keep their eyes open for potential problems. Despite these small kinks using EOBR has been a great adjustment for CR England. With complete confidence in the switch Dustin England stated that they “would never, ever, ever go back to paper logs again.”
http://fleetowner.com/regulations/experts-paper-logbooks-eobr-0805/
