Inward Facing Cameras & AI

Mine was as well, you had 1.5 seconds to show braking. Obviously it's been changed. I've seen the software for the interface on the camera. The sensitivity, duration, etc are not static and can be changed on the fly.

I didn't see any recent posts. Does your company have inward facing cameras? With or without AI?

I work for SPD (Smokey Point Distributing) and we have outward facing cameras but not inward facing. We use Samsara cameras and elogs and they use AI to pick up stop signs and speed limit signs. When I worked for System Transport they had similar cameras and I did get caught running a stop sign in a rest area once. I hadn't braked at all so I know it actually triggered because it recognized the sign vs just picking it up because of an accidental hard brake.

I don't know if they still use them but I remember reading about Amazon delivery trucks and vans having AI cameras a couple years ago that were very invasive and constantly tracking eye movement and so forth. Drivers complained alot that it would dock them on their safety score for just checking mirrors regularly because it thought their eyes weren't on the road. My brother now works for an Amazon contractor driving their delivery vans and hasn't had any issues with it other than it being annoying so I'm guessing they either worked out some of the kinks or his particular contractor uses different cameras.

Obviously the Amazon example is a bit of an extreme but that's the potential outcome that I'm sure most people are concerned about. My personal experience with AI-assisted cameras is that the company you're employed with can make or break the experience. These Samsara cameras (this is the third company I've worked for that uses them) have a ton of capabilities and all three companies I've worked for had most of the features turned off. The device itself has both inward and outward facing lenses and a mic and can pick up a large number of behaviors. We have the inward camera covered and turned off.

Here's the list of behaviors our cameras can score a driver on, as found right in the app: defensive driving, did not yield, distracted, distracted driving, drowsy, eating/drinking, following distance, following of 0-2s, following of 2-4s, harsh accel, ha, harshrsh brake turn, heavy speeding, lane departure, late response, mobile usage, moderate speeding, near collision, no seat belt, obstructed camera, ran red light, rolling stop, severe speeding, smoking. They used to also have a category for mask use but I guess they finally removed that one. Out of the behaviors I can be scored on, the only ones I've been docked on since I came to this company are Heavy Speeding, Moderate Speeding, Severe Speeding, and Following Distance 2-4s. I don't know if they even use these cameras to track anything else other than a harsh brake event, accident, etc.

They can track quite a bit and it's probably more normal than not at this point to have cameras with AI capabilities. It really just remains to be seen how much they use the cameras for. If they're like the ones we use, they can probably select what they want it to track and what they don't want it to track by literally checking the boxes on their end. Hope this helps shed a little more light on the subject.

I didn't see any recent posts. Does your company have inward facing cameras? With or without AI?

Prime announced they are installing inward and outward cameras with AI. These are supposed to track our hand movements, eyes, seat belts with AI. The outward will pick up U Turns, stop signs and following distance.

Some think they want to have "gotcha" moments to fire us.

I am finding that many other companies already have these cameras. What is your experience?

It would be too evil if they just want find a fault in you. :D

However, maybe it's for investigation purposes when things go down south, like **** happens sometimes and they'll use it to support their investigations. However, the AI gives me the impression they are monitoring all the time you are driving and when an AI detects something, it will alert their system. :D Micromanaging?

Outward facing cameras is all the company needs. Inward and AI is all about finding reasons to fire you. Schneider has just outward facing cameras.

Yeah micromanaged to death. Umm I noticed you took off your seatbelt while backing at the drop yard, etc. Not a chance I'd work for a company with inward/AI.

I didn't see any recent posts. Does your company have inward facing cameras? With or without AI?

Prime announced they are installing inward and outward cameras with AI. These are supposed to track our hand movements, eyes, seat belts with AI. The outward will pick up U Turns, stop signs and following distance.

Some think they want to have "gotcha" moments to fire us.

I am finding that many other companies already have these cameras. What is your experience?

It would be too evil if they just want find a fault in you. :D

However, maybe it's for investigation purposes when things go down south, like **** happens sometimes and they'll use it to support their investigations. However, the AI gives me the impression they are monitoring all the time you are driving and when an AI detects something, it will alert their system. :D Micromanaging?

I've always found this buzzword "micromanaged," as used among truck drivers, to be so misleading. New folks, wanting to get into trucking, are turned into pathological obsessive seekers for the best company to work for by the way we throw words like this around. It's disturbing. It's paralyzing to some people.

I have found trucking to be a liberating experience. I have never felt "managed" at all. Trucking allows me the freedom to manage myself. It's such an independent job that it is quite literally like being self-employed.

I earn great money because I do the things that allow me to be productive. Nobody has to goad me to action or watch to make sure I am doing what's needed. That's the beauty of trucking. You can measure out your own salary and contentment. This career is designed for highly motivated individuals.

Why would a company be looking for "gotcha" moments? All we hear about is how they need drivers. Why would they spend loads of capital in an effort to get rid of drivers? The camera systems are to reduce insurance costs which have gotten out of hand.

This era reminds me of when the ELD mandate came along. Alot of drivers claimed they would never use them if they were mandated. Same old story here. If the company puts in cameras I am done. Or words similiar.

Between theives and lawyers insurance costs keep rising. This year in Ga commercial insurance rates went up 20% across the board.

A couple months ago JB Hunt released information their insurance section lost several million dollars y/y.

Cameras are in all walks of our society these days, city’s, highways, law enforcement, homes, etc.

I wonder how many folks that are oppossed to camera’s have them at home. I know I have them on my home.

We have both inward and outward. They definitely track your eye and hand movements. If your eyes are fixed on something like the radio it will warn you with a couple beeps and then go off for distracted driving. I had pulled my phone out of my pocket to put on the dash and it recognized having a phone in my hand… it actually said to “put down the cell phone” but it never goes off if I have a snack or drink.

I haven’t had any real issues with them. Our supervisors only get the footage if we are doing something wrong. The outward is supposed to read signs, it will go off if you pass 10 over the posted and tells you to reduce speed.

My company has inward and outward. I like having the outward in case I ever need it to back up my story in an incident. I'm not fond of inward, but I'm not getting calls from my company over any perceived infractions.

What I've noticed is that it doesn't see everything properly. For example, in Wisconsin I've seen stop signs that say "unless turning right." It'll ding me for running a stop sign even though I legally wasn't required to stop. Also, driving through Texas in an 80mph zone, it'll yell at me to slow down. I'm limited to 70 so I don't know what she's picking up on!

Prime is partnering with Netradyne, if anyone interested to look it up.

I see it as a behavioral feedback system to supposedly make us safer drivers. It could initially be distracting worrying about getting flagged for something.

The AI will collect a lot of data for analysis and feedback.

I’m sure there are things that I can change to be safer.

However, I don’t like the platitude “It shouldn’t bother you if you don’t have anything to hide” to sell this to drivers. That’s the same propaganda used by tyrannical governments to impose surveillance everywhere.

This country is on our way to becoming a CCP style surveillance state.

I won’t quit over it. I see a lot of experienced drivers at Prime claiming they will. I will believe that emotional response when I see it done.

Did any Hollywood actors or musicians leave the country when Trump became President? A lot claimed they would for virtue signaling publicity

Just my 2 cents

Prime screwed up by using the scary two letter word. That's all. If they had said they were putting in inward facing cameras but didn't use the scary word, they still would have pushed alot of drivers out the door but they wouldn't be getting near the amount of backlash they're currently getting. Cameras have been using AI for years at this point. It's basically just more advanced pattern recognition. Instead of only triggering an event based on specific parameters for "harsh braking," now it can recognize if you're using a seat belt and it can read speed limit signs. That's technically AI but it's been mainstream for years. Try searching for a specific word or number in your photo app on your phone and you'll see that even your phone can read text in the pics you have saved on it. It's nothing new. Siri and "ok google" have been using voice recognition and AI for years to be able to predict text, understand speech, answer questions, etc.

I'm not a fan of inward facing cameras and I will almost always choose a company that doesn't have them over a company that does have them but that's just personal preference. It all really comes down to how the company chooses to use the cameras. If they choose to be really punitive about small stuff then it'll definitely feel pretty micro-managed. They could choose to have them set up in such a way they alert drivers when they're doing something wrong and the company only calls the driver when they're doing something pretty egregious. That's how my company has our cameras set up (granted, we don't have inward facing cameras but the same general principal applies).

This is almost the same discussion we used to have on the forum years ago about inward facing cameras and it's been dormant for quite a while now. This is really only coming up now because someone said "AI" and everyone is losing their minds. It's the same thing that happened when Brett announced he was going to use AI on the site. Everyone lost their damn minds and he had people emailing him asking him to delete their accounts. Newsflash...that little AI companion he made has been sitting over in it's own little corner of the site ever since (just like he said it would) just like Apple's Siri, Google's "Ok google," Microsoft's "Cortana," or Microsoft's new AI companion "CoPilot," just free to use and answer questions whenever you want to use it. AI is just like lots of other tech we have. It can be used responsibly or irresponsibly and it's just a tool that in this case is being used to more accurately track things like phone usage and speeding.