> Before he'd drive slower 55-65 ave mph for longer hours and take frequent breaks.
The hours pre- and post-strictness changes were the same, it's just with electronic logbooks it's harder to fudge the numbers than the older paper charts.
This would imply he was worker longer hours than was strictly allowed (at a slower pace/speed). After hours could not be fudged, it meant that the pace had to go up to cover the same distance.
What should have happened was that the expectations of what was possible in a work-rest cycle should have been adjusted.
Further, one big issue with trucking (often came up in Bloomberg's Odd Losts podcasts on this topic) is that drivers are paid per load, rather than (say) per hour. Often what happens is that they're stuck at a warehouse waiting to un/load for potentially hours, which they're not paid for. The source/destination doesn't care because whether the driver is waiting for 30 or 300 minutes the fee is the same: they have no motivation to be efficient. This kills what the driver can earn in a day/week if warehouse folks lollygag.