SWIFT In Cab Cameras

Besides, you do not sleep at your desk. You sleep in your sleeper berth. Your "desk" is the driver's chair. Two totally separate places.

Besides, you do not sleep at your desk. You sleep in your sleeper berth. Your "desk" is the driver's chair. Two totally separate places.

one of the lawsuits Swift suffered during their "trial" for the cams was because they triggered the cam to record a driver while he was asleep in his sleeper birth. The cams can see back into it.

Besides, you do not sleep at your desk. You sleep in your sleeper berth. Your "desk" is the driver's chair. Two totally separate places.

one of the lawsuits Swift suffered during their "trial" for the cams was because they triggered the cam to record a driver while he was asleep in his sleeper birth. The cams can see back into it.

Shut the curtain. Problem solved. Just like at your house, if you do not want every random person with a cell phone camera driving down your street to see you dancing naked in your living room, you shut the curtain.

But, seeing as how a Google search of this supposed lawsuit turned up nothing, I am somewhat skeptical that the cameras will actually look into the sleeper berth at all. Can you provide any evidence for this?

Snow your a good person, trusting soul. I sincerely wish I had more of that trait. Adults lie all the time and often for good reason. Politicians lie to get into office, if they told the truth know one would believe him or they would hate him. Sales men lie trying to get you to buy something you really don't need. Your friends will lie because the truth is just sometimes to boring. When you get announcements like SWIFT you sometimes have to listen to what they are not saying. They could be using language to missdirect you. The streaming video phrase is a perfect example. He said there will be no streaming video and I believe him. If you have two critical events back to back the two files will be uploaded to the storage servers. Using a cronological linked list and running them through a video loop can create a video longer than 20 seconds. If I can write the code to do this in my head while driving a semi I can guarantee the code monkeys at this software shop have already done it. Is it streaming video? Technically no, the probability for them to make a video longer than 20 seconds is very high though. I also took into consideration the audience, they were more than likely getting a lot of questions about streaming and thats why they added it. The real question is would they use this method to make these videos, not do they have the capability to do so. A smart man knows half of everything he hears is a lie, I wise man knows which half to listen too.

You must remember that this is a business and it needs money to pay me. I just do not believe that the driver cams are to help drivers like they said in the video. They are there to save/generate money. This is not a bad thing, I can see clearly how the dash cams are going to help me and my company. Driver cams there are just too many questions and my gut is screaming at me more than my rational mind to get out ASAP. Sometimes your gut is right.

Finally, you will notice after a few weeks out here solo that we are segregated from the general public. Many of the shippers/recievers will have thick walls with reinforced doors and plexy glass seperating us from them. Many of our own terminals are set up this way. It's a tough job and spending weeks or more out here will make you different in ways from them. It's all good because the people who deal with us at face value (waitresses, truckers, mechanics) are some of the best people I have ever met. I am very uncomfortable with someone who does not deal with truckers on the street level analyzing me over a video. When I have been running hard for a week or two I am sure many outside this trucking world think "who the #### let this guy out?"

Finally for those of you saying if I have nothing to hide, I should not be worried. Trucking does not exactly work like that. If I were to follow every law to the letter I would literally starve to death or the company (rightfully) would find a reason to get rid of me. (SWIFT has been very good about saftey concerns and has a culture that surrounds it.) I am safe, I will not even buy a blue tooth in over 9 months of driving because conversation distracts me to much. My trucker buddies give me a lot of flack for that lol. I still have much to learn and it's going to take time for me to get professional at this and it will you also.

They have the right to use the cameras. You have the right to seek employment elsewhere.

See a whole lot of, their gonna be doing this, or what if that... Come on folks. A whole lot of assuming on how they will use said footage. Do you really believe they are gonna fire good drivers over taking one hand off the wheel to drink some water?

My GUESS is, it's all about saving money in litigation. Think of how much money one accident cost companies. How many cases do you think they settle out of court because they can't prove the driver did in fact do everything correctly. Win just one and the cameras pay for themselves. Camera/company wins...

As for the audio aspect, they need that so when you crash because you were choking/ gaging they can prove it was not a medical issue just a stanky ol fart....

That was not directed at you atilla. I started typing before your last post.

As previously stated, I respect anyone who chooses to leave a company over a camera.

Me I have to cross that bridge of and when I get there.

I thin this is a good discussion since it has made people think about privacy and surveillance.

The real problem with any unwanted surveillance is the inequity of someone being monitored by another person who has the authority to make judgments that affect the person being monitored. Usually the person making the judgment isn't held to the same standard as the person being judged.

When the consequences are severe (e.g., being thrown into the gulag or a death camp by the KGB or the SS), or the inequity of the qualifications is extreme (e.g., a sixth-generation citizen being pulled aside for a search at the airport on the say-so of a recent immigrant wearing a burka), people are more likely to take offense. In this case, both arguments have been made against driver-facing cameras.

The severe consequences have been alleged, but I haven't seen any real proof. Can anyone say for sure that lots of drivers have lost their jobs because they were seen on camera eating chips or drinking a soda and nothing else (no accident, just eating)? I'd like real examples - no names needed, but more than speculation that it might happen.

As for the extreme inequity of qualifications, same thing: lots of speculation that unqualified 18-year-olds will be making the decisions, but no real facts. My guess is that it would be a safety person, with input from experienced insurance claims people and maybe litigation attorneys. A lot of those folks have never driven a truck, but they know all about what a case is worth in dollars and cents. (And the chick in the burka might know all about who's about to flake out on an airplane for all I know, but I quit flying when they said I had to take my shoes off.)

That's all this camera business is really about: money. It's not about privacy directly, though it touches on it. The TSA workers might get their chuckles from the useless x-ray machines at the airport, and maybe some yahoos at the trucking companies would do the same with dash cam footage when an event is triggered, but mostly it's all about money when someone gets hurt or property is damaged by a truck. (And pull the curtain shut already!)

So, speculation about what might happen to innocent, hard-working truckers when a camera is put on them aside, the facts boil down to companies (trucking companies and their insurers) looking for a way to save some serious money from claims and lawsuits by installing cameras. This isn't the government forcing this (though I'm sure they'd like to put them in every vehicle, private and commercial), it's big business doing it.

And big business already has access to all the audio and video and other data concerning your private life that they need. I'm typing this on one of their devices right now. They can hear and see everything they want with either of the two cameras and the mic. The privacy war was lost forever with the invention of the Hindernet and the smartphone. You can carry a dumb phone (Hollywood stars do) or opt out entirely, but good luck finding a job or an apartment without the Hindernet. It can be done, but it's getting to be more and more difficult. And you can't drive a truck without being constantly monitored, even if you're an O/O running paper logs with no GPS on your tractor.

All of that has been said in this thread, of course. Drawing the line at a camera facing you won't change it, I don't think. The only real solution to the loss of privacy and freedoms we've experienced in the last 30 years is to completely change society, and it's hard to be optimistic that those changes, whether slow and gradual or sudden and violent, will be for the better. In 10 years, these will be the good old days of trucking.

And Terry, I think you're great, but quoting the UN is not a good way to convince anyone that privacy means anything to those in power. There has not been a more hypocritical "government" in the history of mankind, and I'm including Hitler and Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot in that statement. (Who the heck are their "citizens," anyway? I know I'm not one.)

On a tangential note, I talked to a guy today who has one of these $600 setups on his truck. He said it saved his butt twice already.

Quad Camera Setup

There is a video of a swift driver eating a salad while driving: no accident no critical event but he was fired. They play it in the terminals.

the probability for them to make a video longer than 20 seconds is very high though

I just do not believe that the driver cams are to help drivers like they said in the video. They are there to save/generate money.

there are just too many questions and my gut is screaming at me more than my rational mind to get out ASAP. Sometimes your gut is right.

......all of that is pure speculation and paranoia.

The second one is the one I keep bringing up.......the idea that somehow the company will win and the driver will lose with these cameras. That is what I'd like to see evidence of. Just one example of when the camera was used to prove the driver was at fault which in turn relieved the company of any liability or wrongdoing. In other words, the company was able to put the blame on the driver and take it off of themselves using a camera to demonstrate the driver's guilt and the company's innocence.

The point I'm trying to make is that legally the company that is liable for your screwups. If anyone is going to get sued, it's the company. It's also the company's CSA score which gets hurt if you screw up. That alone is plenty of reason to have cameras watching you work. If they're going to be held responsible for your actions then they're going to monitor your actions to make sure you're handling your job safely.

Usually the person making the judgment isn't held to the same standard as the person being judged.

With all your years on the road do you think its in any way a positive thing for some desk jockey to turn on your cam and fire you for eating fries??

Ahhhhhh the ol' "You ain't a trucker so you don't know nothin about trucking so shut up" kinda thing. Like the only person who could referee an NFL game to determine if someone committed a violation must be a current or former NFL player? Baloney. Nobody is going to let a high school kid on a summer internship determine a driver's fate. They may monitor video clips and report a violation, but ultimately the people making the final decisions are the same people making them now - the safety department.

The severe consequences have been alleged, but I haven't seen any real proof. Can anyone say for sure that lots of drivers have lost their jobs because they were seen on camera eating chips or drinking a soda and nothing else (no accident, just eating)? I'd like real examples - no names needed, but more than speculation that it might happen.

Exactly.

There is a video of a swift driver eating a salad while driving: no accident no critical event but he was fired. They play it in the terminals.

So this is interesting. Are you saying that Swift explained that the cameras are only triggered to record when an "event" of some sort takes place, and yet they've gone out of their way to prove themselves to be hypocritical by showing a video that wasn't triggered by anything at all but was used against the driver to fire him, correct?

Yeah I'm so done with this thread. I didn't realize that there's so many people without ever driving yet, know exactly what they're going to encounter out here and have a great handle on things.

First off let me address that anyone that has driven a truck, at some point, had done something WHILE DRIVING, that could technically get them fired. To sayy otherwise is a lie. Nobody can be perfect all the time. If you think you're going to be by the book at all times, you're lying to yourself.

Second, while on your high horse calling out all the "wrong doers" who are being 100% truthful and honest about things, come back in a year and tell me that you did everything by the book 100% of the time. You'll notice that allot of seasoned experienced drivers that post often are keeping quiet on this topic. No-one wants to admit what they've done, no matter how small. That's fine. I don't blame them. I've driven professionally in one type of vehicle or another, since joining the military in 1988. Big rigs in particular for 7 years. I haven't had a single accident. But if you had a camera on me 100% of those times, you would have seen me do something that may have got me fired. I don't do these these all of the time or even part of the time, but there have been times.

Should you drive siren the road and eat a salad? Hell no. I wouldn't even think about two handed eating and driving, even on interstate 10 in Texas in the middle of the night with no traffic. I know when to pay attention to my surroundings that bed 100% of my attention. My driving record so far proves that.

Lastly Daniel...If you ever call me out on not knowing or reading my countries constitution, after I have been a war time patriot and am deeply involved with the workings of this government...we're going to have problems. Plain and simple. You don't know a thing about me other than a presumption I don't know wtf my rights are. I take sincere offence at not being a patriot of this country. And I'm going to leave it at that.

And for those who quoted my words and said "I hope you don't think I'm picking on you." I don't think that at all. I'm down with everyone's views even though they are contrary to mine. I can debate peacefully and enjoy it. But I will never stand for not knowing about the country I live in.

Great thread Atilla. It's been an engaging topic to be sure. But I've said my piece and will bow out and exit stage left.