New Camera System Coming to all company trucks.

They did do a trial period before full installation. If the cameras work as they are supposed to, swift has every right to know if the person they employed is texting or taking pictures or whatever it is they do when a critical event happens. In fact, even the audio, could help you in a crash. I knowy husband talks to the vehicles around him while driving and tells them not to do things and swears at them, it would prove an awareness of your surroundings.

The big fine line is that your truck serves as your home. I tjink that ms. Jamie offered great answers with her knowledge of the system. She admitted it was 3 years old and pointed out that if swift chose to infringe on your pricacy they would be on the losing end of a large lawsuit. At this point, i think some have already decided thar they are being told lies. I think those people DO need to look for other employment, for their own mental sanity. A job should never fill you with anger.

 

By all accounts, companies don't even have to watch the video now.
As an O/O I'm very interested in installing a camera system on my truck, inc one on either side of the truck. I visited a camera co in Houston who installs systems for the police dept and the salesman out of interest showed me the latest driver monitoring camera. Facing the driver.
It's designed to focus on the drivers eyes and eyelid movements. It can quickly analyse the sequence of eye movements and if that sequence changes it will immediately send an alert to the safety dept.
Wow...glad I'm not a co driver anymore. But that's the way it's going. Not just recording critical events but seeing if you've got drooping eyelids.
Every action in this case is going to have a detrimental reaction in my view.
Well I guess you could wear dark goggles and a ski mask so it would compromise the intrusive camera.
You've got to love this technology. Whatever next.

 

Cursing at the vehicles around him WILL BE portrayed as "aggressive driving" and "road rage" by the plaintiff's attorney. Video doesn't lie, and your hubby will fry.

Like the Miranda warnings say, ANYTHING YOU SAY CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU in a court of law. Same goes for whatever audio is on the tape. If there is a way it can be used against you, you'd better believe it WILL BE used against you.

 

I beg to differ. He is usually telling cars not to do things. He is acknowledging that he is aware of what it appears they are going to do. His cursing is accompanyimg his corrective actions. If the car does something so awful, his correction was not going to be adequate, it would be apparent. Seeing as most of tge time these events due not lead to accidents, any angry cursing episodes would be disregarded. In an actual accident, i am sure the sound oof panic and terror would resonate strongly enough in the video it would be a nonissue. Hopefully, it is something he will never have to experience.

I have a different perspective than you guys that drive the truck. I simply serve as the voice of reason when swift provides my family's only income source. If he would like to quit because of the cameras that is fine, but so long as he is rational enough to have another job in place (preferably a local one) it has no bearing on me. A corporation does not care aboutwhat bridges he chooses to burn, so if he gets a call telling him to drive into a termi al to get a camera installed it is my job to keep him calm enough to not walk away until he has other options. I will look for the silver lining, however thin it may be.

 

Facts don't really matter. Your husband could be the world's safest driver, and the fool that crashed into him could have an MVR history a mile long, and if the FEW SECONDS prior to and following the incident can in ANY WAY be twisted around to lay blame on your husband, IT WILL BE! So he saw it coming...he WARNED the other driver not to do what they were about to do. They did it anyway AND HE SHOWED THEM! Yup. Road raging truck driver who thinks he owns the road takes out an oblivious car driver. Instead of the dash cam showing the wreck to be 99.9% the fault of the car, the driver cam added into the equation makes your husband just as culpable in the wreck because of the attitude shown in that brief little clip twisted out of context by the plaintiff's attorney in order to help his client.

 

Yep ... go through adjudication on a MV accident ... it gets real twisted, real fast. Especially if you are the defendant. Plaintiff's attorneys will just plain make stuff up.

 

My Theory:

1 Swift has about 2 company drivers to every lease operator. They would like to flip the script and turn those numbers around to 2 lease op for every company driver. How do you do that? Pizz off your company driver fleet real bad and offer a carrot that they can lease a truck without a cam all up in the driver's grill.

2 This kind of ties into the first point up there, but Swift has been hit with a double whammy on revenue with the upcoming 'short miles' class action lawsuit, have been paying closer to practical miles by all reports plus the two driver raises in the last few months. Lease Ops are way more valuable because of a number of reasons like when the truck breaks down it is the L/O who has to pay for it and maintain it.
Company driver breaks down, Swift has to spring for a hotel plus breakdown pay which previously was subsidized by the company driver himself through 'short miles'-- that revenue stream is drying up.

3 So this kinda ties into 2 up there, the money has to come from somewhere-- the suing public 4wheelers who play crash derby with Swift trucks and walk away with tens of thousands of dollars per incident settled out of court. So Swift's idea is to put these cams in looking at both the 4wheeler's actions but also the Swift driver's actions in case of trucker fault, Swift is aiming to distance itself from frivolous lawsuits, instead transfering that burden over to the driver. The idea is if they can stem the flow of money going out in lawsuits, that money can be spent on the driver wage increases already committed to.

Plus it can be used to Exonerate you lol if exonerate means tied up the stake and burned alive til the end of eternity.

 

numbers are a bit off... over 18,000 total trucks, only about 4500 are lease ops.

Also they are holding back on the announcement but L/O trucks will get the cams after they finish the company ones, there is actually a clause in the contract that allows them to do it.

 

Not quite ... the modification clause is in the IEL contract, not the Swift contract ... Swift can't modify the truck without owners permission ... some of us own our trucks and the IEL clause is not in effect.

 

O/O is different then L/O