Logbook Legalities

I curious about the legal side of logbooks and have a few questions. I recently heard a bizarre story from a fellow driver regarding what I feel is unfair use of information found in his logbooks.

1. Who ‘owns’ a drivers logs? 2. How much control over your logbooks can your employer have? 3. Can your employer release your logs to law enforcement without your knowledge? 4.Can information in your logs be used outside of DOT norms? Example being HOS. 5. If a law enforcement officer, other then DOT, wants to view your logs without your knowledge, do they need a search warrant? 6. If the logs belong to the driver, can his employer legally release them? 7. Can your logs be used to link you to a crime scene/area?

Nobody really “owns” logbooks, it’s more of a responsibility of having them and having them accurate. As a driver, you’re required by law to turn them in to your company and then they kept on file. In regards to the question of can your company give them to law enforcement, that answer is yes and there’s no warrant required. In the older days, DOT would schedule an audit with a company and then go through the logs to assure everything was in order. With the new slogs, they can go in any time they want and then assess tickets for violations found.

Your logs can DEFINITELY be used to put you in a proximity of an event. The driver signs them asserting they are true. Any LEO authorized to DOT inspect can demand ti see your paper logs. ELD with GPS is easily recoverable by a simple download to email. No warrant requirement, driver has no 'Expectation of Privacy" in those records, especially once the company copy is turned in.

And for the "i can outsmart them on paper" folks, the first thing any LEO is going to be doing in the event of a serious (read fatal or bad haz) CMV crash is subpoena cell tower pings and seize any gps equipped device (including the phone). Theyll ask consent to inspect, but if refused will seize and get a warrant. The phone contents are easily destroyed, the seizure pending warrant would likely be permissible just so no search of contents occurred.

We live in an electronic age. Our footprints are everywhere. Did you know that many states now, internally anyway, spit back how many times q plate has been run in the past 10 days when a copper runs it? ILL , one of the least forward thinking states that way, has been doing it for at least 10, probably closer to 15. Including LPR tech... no hiding from it.