Oilfield Company No Renegade When it Comes to ELDs
Renegade Wire Line Services has been running on J.J. Keller ELogs for more than three years. Photo: Renegade Wire Line Services
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Renegade Wire Line Services has been running on J.J. Keller ELogs for more than three years. Photo: Renegade Wire Line Services
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Todd Caughey was a state trooper for 25 years who retired and took on a new career as HSE/DOT Compliance Supervisor for Renegade Wire Line Services. The company put in electronic logs back in 2014, so he has an unusual perspective on how enforcement will go when the electronic logging device mandate kicks in come Dec. 18.
RWLS, which stands for Renegade Wire Line Services, is a Texas-based fleet serving the gas and oil field industry in Texas and other states. “I knew what ELDs would do for us,” says Todd Caughey, a retired state trooper who’s heading up safety and compliance for the company, “and ownership wanted to go this direction before it became mandatory.”
The company initially rolled out e-logs in two of its 12 districts, then added districts. Today it has ELDs in all 300 units, everything from big tandem-axle heavy-duty wire line straight trucks to pickup trucks with trailers.
Caughey chose J.J. Keller’s Encompass with ELogs. He was familiar with Keller from his time in enforcement, and liked the ability to use existing tablets or cell phones. “Most everyone today has a smartphone, so I didn’t have to make an additional investment.”
However, he says, those smartphones have caused problems with enforcement officials who erroneously believed cell phone e-logs were not allowed. “They’re not realizing their connected to an ELD [engine connection hardware] via Bluetooth,” Caughey says. When that happens, he explains, the regulation says the company has 48 hours to provide the logs at the trooper’s request. So he prints them out in the office and emails them to the enforcement official.
“I’m seeing law enforcement not knowledgeable on ELDs,” he says – even some people in the Federal Motor …Read the rest of this story
