Back up camera on school trucks?

He has a right to his opinion, just the same as you do. This isn't Cub Scouts and some times the advice you'll be given is given directly and without filters. If you don't like what he has to say, put him on IGNORE.

Developing a little tougher hide will do you a world of good if you're serious about trucking.

 

Easy there tiger, stick around a bit.

The backup cameras, I’m looking into - I do oversized loads.

Sometimes extension mirrors can’t see around a 15’ wide load.

They have their uses. Send me a link if you’ve found some.

You’ll need a filter and a thick skin here. Hang in.

 

Trailers exterior is made of plastic, aluminum, fiberglass.
To me, that would be distracting on a tractor-trailer.

 

I was a commercial bus driver for 20 years before I started driving trucks five years ago, and some of the buses I drove had backup cameras. I didn’t need one, but it was handy to have sometimes. When I decided to upgrade from a Class B license to a Class A and become a truck driver, I had the same idea that you have, that it would be useful to rig some kind of portable camera on the back of trailers.

I quickly changed my mind after I got behind the wheel and actually started backing trailers into loading docks and parking spots. It’s much simpler to just use my eyes, both with mirrors and by getting out and looking. There often just isn’t time to get out and rig something up, get connected, and then be looking at a two dimensional screen while trying not to hit anything (the camera doesn’t cover your sides!). I concluded that it was a lot of hassle for very little return.

I was a Jedi bus driver, I could and often did parallel park a 45 ft long coach bus (without cameras) on New York City streets, but I’ll freely admit that I had a difficult time getting the hang of backing a tractor trailer rig. I managed to learn enough in the community college class to get my Class A, but I almost washed out of my company training. The thing that saved me was when our training manager took me away from my trainer (who was a jerk who mostly just yelled at me without actually telling me anything useful) and put me in a truck in our yard and had me practice backing a trailer into a space between two parked trailers over and over for eight hours, simulating backing into a dock or truck stop parking place. By the end of the day, I was finally getting a feel for steering the back end of the trailer, and when I went back out on the road with a new trainer, I was competent.

It took several months before I got comfortable, but now it’s second nature.

 

Just my opinion, my wife and I have only been driving since April, but the only place I think a back up camera would be useful is on the back corner of a trailer on the blindside (passenger side).


Without a camera you get out and look when you need to anyway.

When you’re backing into a dock, you need to get out and open your doors and slide your trailer tandem wheels back anyway, it wouldn’t be hard to slap a camera on the back corner of the DOT under ride bumper. Those are always made out of good old fashion steel as far as I know.