Log falsification remains the number one hours-of-service-related violation. Many people mistakenly believed that falsification would be a thing of the past once electronic logging devices (ELDs) were in widespread use. However, while ELDs made falsification harder and easier to spot (by officers and companies alike), it did not stop the practice.
Here are the common methods drivers use to falsify, followed by how you can catch it, and what you should do about it:
- Logging out when a limit is reached and then continuing to drive.
- How you can catch it: This becomes evident when you assign the unassigned driving time to the driver.
- What you should do about it: This type of falsification is why it is critical that you run an unassigned driving report each day and quickly deal with any unassigned driving time (see 395.32)!
- Driving without logging in to make a break long enough.
- How you can catch it: This is also evident when the unassigned driving time is assigned to the driver.
- What you should do about it: This is another reason quickly dealing with unassigned driving time is so important!
- Using one of the special driving categories (personal conveyance or yard move) to hide on-duty and driving time or to keep driving time from being recorded as driving.
- How you can catch it: Run a report that shows the use of these driving categories and make sure the use was legitimate.
- What you should do about it: If personal conveyance was used, you need to verify the driver was not moving down the assigned route line, did no work for the company, and did not end up in a better location as far as the company was concerned. If yard move was used, you need to verify the driver was in a yard (a privately owned area not open to public travel) during the movement (see 395.28 and Interpretation Question 26 to 395.8).
- Editing to create more hours.
- How you can catch it: This can be seen by running an edit report and looking for drivers who were short on hours and who edited a bunch of on-duty time to make it off-duty time.
- What you should do about it: Verify that the edits matching the falsification profile (on-duty to off-duty time) are legitimate edits (done to correct an error or omission). A common reason for such an edit is the driver forgetting to log out at the end of the day. This will be obvious. However, if the edit was done at a loading, unloading, fueling, or inspection location, the edit should be suspect (see 395.30).
- The appearance of ghost driver accounts.
- How you can catch it: These are driver accounts that do not have an actual driver assigned to them. These accounts are prohibited in the regulations (395.22) and are a common place for drivers to hide driving time.
- What you should do about it: To see if you have any ghost drivers, compare your driver roster to the driver list in your ELD system. If you discover a ghost driver, find out who created it and who has been using it.
- Minimizing on-duty time.
- How you can catch it: When looking at summary reports, be on the lookout for drivers who have the same amount of on-duty time each day (called cookie cutter logging) or have little or no on-duty time.
- What you should do about it: Look for specific patterns. When a driver is doing cookie cutter logging, the driver will always log the exact same amount of time for on-duty activities (for example, always five minutes for a pretrip or fueling and always fifteen minutes for loading or unloading, etc.) and the on-duty time will be surrounded by off-duty time. Also be on the lookout for drivers who have fewer on-duty hours than a typical driver at your company.
By watching for these and other common methods drivers use to falsify their logs — and taking quick action when falsification is found — you will go a long way toward reducing this common violation and improving highway safety in 2024 and beyond.
Key to remember: ELDs did not make falsification impossible. However, they did make it easier to see if you know what you are looking for and where to look.
