Any person who spends most of his time at the wheel is aware that the work is more than the traffic. Shifts lasting long, weather that is unpredictable, deadlines that are biting at your heels, and a perpetual search to find a good cup of coffee can wear down even the hardest of drivers. Punishment on top of that is to add paperwork. It is why the nhvr work diary app is beginning to seem like a small miracle in the cab. Drivers can keep track of all that digitally, with greater speed, cleaner, and devoid of the stress, than it was before they used to rip up logbooks, or watch the ink fade away.
Diaries in paper would tend to become smudged and crumpled at the end of day. Some omission, some hurried scribble somewhere--then who knows what you have written, or whether you even made a note of that last rest at all. Those concerns are forgotten quickly with the app. It tracks work and rest minutes in the most organized and immediate way, directly on a phone or a tablet. There is not a pen and a bit of paper, second guessing.
One of my acquaintances who was a driver did not carry his logbook and was forced to drive back an hour to escape the fine. That is nonexistent with the digital system. All information is saved in a secure place, it is updated on a real time basis and is always available whenever a person needs to review it. The least amount of messing around and more driving that is the way it should be.
Compliance is another insidious benefit. The system monitors rest breaks and driving limits and indicates anything that does not appear to be correct. No Excel sheets, no, no calculation at the late hours in the dark of a truck stop. It makes things tidy and above board without any feeling that drivers are being given homework.
And even before somebody asks--yes, the data is supported. In case you lose your phone, there are no records that disappear along with it. It is easy to share entries in case of an audit or inspection, and all is in order without a scrap of paper flying around the cab.
Certainly, not all drivers are fast to embrace new technology, and understandably so: paper is something the job has always had. However, when they realize that the app saves them a lot of time and frustration, the majority of them would not even dream of returning to it. It is nice to be a little bit nostalgic, but convenience is always the winner.
And as much as the NHVR Work Diary App cannot magically turn hot chips into a hot meal and the ideal roadside bakery, it will simplify one of the jobs considerably. In case you are still carrying around a crumpled logbook, then it is time to give a digital approach a few tries. Less scribble, more drive, that is a trade worth having.