In Cab Cameras On The Driver

A lot of mixed views on this one and wasn't going to say anything but ran out of popcorn, yes the privacy issue was discussed, companies being sued and put out of business, was covered and for the Kimball(Flexcell) driver I know he probably would have welcomed having a camera in his truck. His wife died because she was driving in a manner that caused the accident. So while the talk has been all about my privacy or this or that. The husband of the wife that was killed, for three years took the Kimball driver to court over and over again not to sue Kimball, but to sue him and permanently end his driving career and it was the Judge who put a stop to it and informed him that the driver should sue him for harassment. You can take this for whats its worth, but if all one is concerned about is privacy and you have an accident and nothing to back up your side of the story, the end result shouldn't be a shocker.

I would also imagine the companies get some form of an insurance break as well, having those dash cams in trucks. Stands to reason

When I worked for Nissan Forklifts, we had "black boxes" in our service vans. I didn't care, I knew I had nothing to worry about. 1 day the boss showed me how he can punch in any van # and see every bit of your driving habits that day(not visually)

About a year and a half working there, he calls me on the radio to come into his office after my last call. I get there, he tells me "Hey! I see you were driving at 85+ mph on Mission Blvd?"(45 zone) I told him, you need to check the van id # , I was 120+ miles away at that time, headed to Palm Springs...... "Ooooops! wrong van # you're right, wasn't you" hahaha I never hit 85 ever, even on the freeway in a rush to a breakdown, I'll get there, when I get there.

Hey, I'm a lefty too! :D

*sigh*....black boxes to monitor my driving habits in a truck that's worth a lot of dollars? I don't have a problem with that. Dash cam viewing in front of the truck, the road..I don't have a problem with that. Dash cam staring me down 24/7......ehhhh. Don't like it one bit. I know not every company have them. So it will be up to me to ask questions during an interview, weight the ups and downs, and decide for myself what I want. Don't get me wrong, I would never be self pompous enough to go tell someone "you can't do that!!" Unless there's blatant disrespect towards my person, I know how to behave with the bosses. And if I don't like something to a point it's affecting me greatly, I always have the option to go look for work elsewhere. I'm just saying, I just want to be aware, know what to expect, so I can make informed decisions. :)

"I'm just saying, I just want to be aware, know what to expect, so I can make informed decisions. :)"

And with that, l leave this thread!!!

If you ever look at driver cam vids on YouTube, the camera can only see the drivers seat. So unless you plan on driving nekid, I don't see the problem. Sometimes, just a little extra research goes a long way, to helping calm your fears. It is called a Driver cam, not a Cab cam.

Here goes...I wrote this a while ago saving it for a rainy day. It's raining. Although I risk public flogging this is a sincere attempt to add reasonable facts to this issue.

The mere mention of the word “camera” in relation to truck driving, conjures up a whirlwind of controversy and emotion. We live in a society where surveillance has become the norm. We are constantly watched through a variety of electronic media capable of recording and exposing every move and thought. The essence of true privacy is perhaps a thing of the past. Like it or not it’s become a way of life we can either tolerate/accept or stress over. Recently there has been a sharp increase in the use of in-cab cameras with a lens facing forward and one pointed directly at us; the truck driver. Without question I think we can all see the benefit and the necessity of a forward, road facing lens. Remember as truckers we are typically guilty until proven innocent when it comes to accidents. Road facing cameras level the playing field for the truck driver wrongly accused of negligence and intent when involved in a crash or traffic incident. However when it comes to the lens that is facing “in-cab”, there is a myriad of dissenting opinions that at times take on a life of their own. We have witnessed several of the posts on TT that quickly become heated, eventually concluding with lines drawn in the sand. The relative value of these discussions become secondary, giving way to venting and soap-box evangelizing. Entertaining to some, possibly stressful and/or confusing to others. A hot potato to say the least.

I sincerely believe we may benefit by stepping back and thinking about the “why” behind the growing trend and the underlying reality of it. To be clear, this is not an attempt to influence or sway a “for” or “against” stance on this, just an attempt to offer fact over fiction, and provide a different perspective on the topic.

If we take a look at the current state of trucking, there is an incredible set of diverse forces effecting the industry. There is an unprecedented level of driver shortages, expected to continue rising for the foreseeable future. Conversely, opportunities for entry level drivers desiring a start in the industry is also at an all-time high, necessary to keep up with demand, high attrition, and also a response to the pending mass exodus of older drivers set for retirement. Increased government scrutiny is a never ending issue that is designed by politicians to superficially improve safety by targeting operational accountability and non-compliance. And what about accidents? Unfortunately truck related accidents are also on the rise and have been for the last 5 years. All of these factors create a spiraling effect by increasing the cost required to operate a trucking company. Without question they influence short and long-term decision making. It’s all about cause and effect. Fact is every business watches and evaluates the performance of their employees. Trucking for obvious reasons cannot have the same degree of interpersonal driver oversite, the sheer numbers make it impractical at best. Except for trucking (specifically truck-driving), in the majority of businesses, the boss is always watching and evaluating employees either interactively and/or electronically. This enables them to make constant adjustments and corrections to improve performance, safety and profitability. Truck driving has been exempt from this level of scrutiny since the very beginning. It’s impossible for the boss to ride-with every driver on every trip in every truck. Introducing the in-cab camera to the driver’s environment literally becomes the “electronic boss”. The camera can capture what we are doing, every moment we are driving. If an event triggers a sensor, the camera will upload what led up to the event and immediately thereafter (roughly 20 seconds before and 10 seconds after).

The cause forcing trucking companies to consider the camera is all about the incredibly high cost of accidents and potential for loss of life. It’s not "about" watching us eat or sleep or observing other personal activities. That notion is ridiculous, they could care less about watching us adjusting the private parts. It’s only about prevention of accidents and a teaching tool. Truck accidents cost on average $195,000 each. If there are injuries and/or fatalities the average cost balloons to 3.2 million dollars for each occurrence.

These are publically available statistics, (feel free to check me). Multiplying the cost average by the total number of accidents annually for each of the top 50 trucking companies, the number then quickly elevates into the hundreds of million dollars. To put this into perspective, if each of our employers can reduce preventable accidents by one percent annually, it translates into several million dollars of savings and obviously a reduction of injuries and lost lives. Considering their already razor-thin profit margins, anything that can reduce trucking company operating costs can in-turn, increase profitability. The industry is hiring new, entry level drivers at an unprecedented rate. Statistics show, the risk of a new driver having a preventable accident is very high, especially in the first three months of experience. As a result, left unchecked, accidents will likely continue rising and potentially risk the overall financial health and fuel the negatively biased public perception. Continued:

Continued from previous post:

Multiple studies; industry, governmental and private have all concluded that in-cab cameras dramatically reduce the number of accidents (in isolated cases, up to a 50% decrease). In all of these studies there was an effective coaching process implemented along with the technology. The numbers don’t lie, they tell a story. The in-cab cameras in conjunction with proper coaching and intervention, increase focus, attention, improve skills and enable better judgment resulting in a reduction of safety related events. Before any company decided to implement this technology they carefully conducted their own studies and observed similar results, a marked decrease in preventable accidents. At a base technology cost of $75.00-$125.00 per unit, this investment is expensive (multi-millions of dollars for the larger fleets), thus requiring extensive study before making a go-forward decision. This decision was not a knee-jerk reaction to the accident trend, but carefully evaluated and calculated.

To dispel the notion that they are “watching all the time”, in a word it’s “impossible”. To support a real-time, 24x7 observation process assumes that trucking companies have the bandwidth capable of supporting a constant increased stream of several million uploads per second. The infrastructure would seize. Even if it were possible, there isn’t enough available electronic storage to capture, organize, and archive all of this content in a centralized facility. Beyond that, the notion of 24x7 real-time observation implies another million workers watching the content for any infractions or wrong-doing, all day and all night. Cost prohibitive to say the least. The critical “event” triggers the upload…nothing more, nothing less.

It’s all about prevention. And like many of the other monitoring systems we tolerate every day, adding the in-cab camera to the list may just be a future way of life for the truck driver. Look at the facts, make your own decision and make no mistake, if this technology saves lives, reduces injuries, reduces liability, and reduces accidents, widespread usage and adoption will increase perhaps making resistance, futile.

The cause forcing trucking companies to consider the camera is all about the incredibly high cost of accidents and potential for loss of life. It’s not "about" watching us eat or sleep or observing other personal activities. That notion is ridiculous, they could care less about watching us adjusting the private parts. It’s only about prevention of accidents and a teaching tool.

This is why I have no problems with it. If I see the red light, I will be calling in at my next stop, to see what I may have done wrong, so I can improve my driving.

Also, with the camera on the window, even the wrap around curtains block it, so it couldn't see you anyway. You won't be woken up in the middle of your 10 hour, being told to move the curtain so they can see what's going on.

OK. G- town pretty much summed it up very well. What subject do we move on too next? I really enjoyed this!

OK. G- town pretty much summed it up very well. What subject do we move on too next? I really enjoyed this!

Thanks SamTon...32' pup-doubles would be a fun one.