Profile For Vegetable Lasagna

you can go about your business, day in and day out, without having to worry about a boss or busybody coworker looking over your shoulder.

Without them literally looking over your shoulder? Yes. But in 2017, are you really doing your job without The Man looking over your shoulder or are you simply comfortable with illusion of anonymity because you can't see a camera on your dashboard?

If you feel you're rolling down the road doing your own thing without someone monitoring every second of your life out there you're kidding yourself. You're on dozens, if not hundreds of cameras every day. Every last detail of the location and performance of your truck is monitored in real time and the data stored long term. You're carrying a cell phone in your pocket which has a GPS chip, microphone, and video camera built in, all of which, it has been demonstrated, can be activated remotely. Every scalehouse you pass logs your presence. Every customer you go to is watching and recording you on private video feeds. When you sit down to eat dinner at a truck stop you're surrounded by surveillance cameras watching every bite of food you take.

If the FBI wanted to know what you've been doing for the last week I guarantee you there isn't a 5 minute period they couldn't account for and they're not even going out of their way to monitor you specifically. That's just existing data being collected by various everyday companies for different reasons.

Even the idea of "online privacy" is a complete fallacy. There's no such thing as a credit card that's secure. The numbers to every card on the planet are in hacker databases all over the world. The only question is will their algorithms get around to using yours or mine? Maybe, maybe not. But there is no privacy or protection from such things. It's all a fallacy.

So again, I understand you don't want a camera and you have every right to feel that way. But to say that having a camera on your dash will ruin trucking for you because suddenly you'll have no privacy or you'll have someone looking over your shoulder simply isn't realistic at all. It's really just a fantasy to think you have any level of anonymity.

Good evening.

First, I am very certain that you are exaggerating the extent to which we are all being monitored and I am absolutely certain that you exaggerate the importance of the examples you cite, in relation to driver facing cameras.

“If you feel you're rolling down the road doing your own thing without someone monitoring every second of your life out there you're kidding yourself.”

I suppose you’re referring to a data recorder on the truck, otherwise this statement would be pure exaggeration. The truck I drive now is not equipped with such a system, but I’ve driven trucks that were and it never bothered me in the least. It’s recording various physical parameters of the rigs operation. It’s not personal.

In fact, with all of your examples, the reason why most of them are of little or no concern to me is that they are impersonal, and have never, affected me in any way. That camera in the store, at the scale, in the restaurant… none of them have ever had the slightest impact on how I conduct my daily business. Most people would agree.

“If the FBI wanted to know what you've been doing for the last week I guarantee you there isn't a 5 minute period they couldn't account for and they're not even going out of their way to monitor you specifically.”

If by “knowing what I’ve been doing” you mean knowing where I’ve been last week, then that’s not saying much. And, its only true if I was carrying a cell phone that was turned on the whole time. And, again, I don’t care. It doesn’t bother me in the least. Has never affected how I conduct myself in any situation. Most people would say the same.

“But to say that having a camera on your dash will ruin trucking for you because suddenly you'll have no privacy or you'll have someone looking over your shoulder simply isn't realistic at all.”

Who said that??? You’re putting words in my mouth. I said that the camera is killing one of the big draws to becoming a truck driving, not that it is ruining it altogether.

I did, however, suggest that what the camera does, is like having your boss looking over your shoulder. Just like the boss could appear at any moment and check out what you're up to, the camera could activate at any moment, recording what you were up to at that moment. And, heaven forbid, you might be eating an Oreo, or talking on your hands free phone (yes, more and more companies are forbidding this as well).

This camera is taking away some of the little pleasures of being an OTR driver. I used to enjoy getting rolling down the big road on a nice, sunny morning, with my first cup of coffee and a hands free phone call to my wife. Well, now, thanks to the camera that little pleasure could land me in a lot of hot water with my company.

I have more to say about this, but I have to get back to work.

Fascintating discussion.

The company is perfectly within in its rights to have an active camera/audio recorder pointed at you, whether you’re sitting in an office cubicle or the driver’s seat of their truck… when you are on duty. However, when you shut the truck down, and go off duty, and your job, for all intents and purposes, requires that the truck become your living space… then, the driver’s expectation of privacy does outweigh whatever interests, if any, the company has in having an active camera and mic pointing in the drivers direction. Companies have acknowledged as much from the beginning, allowing the driver to cover the camera when parked. And, I’m told, swift trans recently announced that they would implement a fix to this issue by making the inward facing camera and microphone go “off” when the truck is shut down, which, again, is an implicit acknowledgement, on their part, that the driver’s expectation of privacy when off duty outweighs any interests the company might have in an inward facing camera that is active when the truck is shut down.

I have talked to many fellow drivers at my company and others that have cameras and have not encountered a single driver that was completely indifferent to the driver facing camera. In fact, the drivers I talk to unanimously dislike the cameras, and would rather they not be in their truck, but most have come to terms with them to some extent.

One of the great attractions to becoming a truck driver for me, and probably so many other truck drivers was that it has always been one of the few occupations where you can go about your business, day in and day out, without having to worry about a boss or busybody coworker looking over your shoulder. These cameras are killing one of the big draws to trucking for many of us.