Paperwork.
The very mention of it stirs unwanted memories of classrooms or offices long escaped. But today’s driver has enough of it to make the job tough unless he keeps the books in order. And the key to doing that is self-discipline.
Putting off the paperwork until the last minute can mean trouble. The most obvious example of this is doing the log book. Regulations say log books need to be current within four hours or your last change of duty status. This means that nearly every time you stop the truck you must make an entry.
It is so much easier to draw that little line half an inch long than sit in your truck for an hour trying to remember where you were three days ago. Take a guy like Don Wolford, who runs for TA Bear out of Hagerstown, Md. He logs 130,000 miles a year in a regional operation. “I have a lot of dock time,” he says. “But I keep my logs up to date as much as I can.”
If your company checks logs against electronic transactions it is doubly important to stay current. Put the time of each transaction on a separate piece of paper in case you are running hard and won’t be doing your logs that day. But maybe you’re driving for the wrong outfit if you can’t run a legal log. Even doing your logs once a day is better than once a week. Having a record of those electronic transactions can save you a headache.
Perhaps the most difficult thing to remember and record, unless you are running with a satellite system like Qualcomm, is fuel tax mileage through the states. There is really no one best way to record it. Trying to write down a border mileage while driving is usually not a good idea. But Denise Dolan Poag, a team driver with six years experience, says, “The biggest secret to keeping up is the 3×5 Post It Note. We would tack one on the dash and at the top write our starting mileage and then, as we passed a state line, write the mileage below that. At midnight we would write the mileage down again.”
Remembering it until your next stop is an option, but naturally, a risky one. For the solo driver, a little tape recorder is another solution. When you sit down to do your fuel tax report, you can simply play it back with no problems.
