Camera? Not on my watch

@superflow , look back on the history of trucking, how many times have we said "this wont be tolerated " yet life just goes on. We may lose the good drivers but the new generation will climb in the seat without a second thought.

 

I completely understand why some companies want to put them in. But that doesn't stop me from not liking it. I worked in the oilfield for many years. I never will forget when they said I wasn't responsible enough to carry a pocket knife. There were just too many hand injuries that happened because of pocket knives. I told them that I refused to comply with that policy. If they wanted to let me go, then let me go. But I will carry a pocket as long as I'm employed there. I never had a problem after that.
I cannot stand the thought of a camera on me at all times. It's not that I have anything to hide, it feels like a slap in the face to me. It's then saying, ok we are going to hire you for this job, but we do not believe in you. We are going to have someone watch you and hold your hand while you do this job.
I'm a combat veteran, I have carried explosives and ammunition strapped to my chest for this country. I was trusted by the government to carry out missions without direct supervision. I hate the fact that some companies feel we need to be babysitted while driving a truck.
I will not work for a company that has driver facing cameras. It's a matter of pride for me.

 

.....we are not hopeless and we don't see Alot of our younger generation choosing trucking as a career

 

There's no draw for the younger generation to the trucking industry. No freedom left, too much hand holding, and lousy pay and benefits. Younger people today can make more money and have more personal freedom flippin burgers for freakin' McDonalds!

 

Yep I always knew my days were numbered doing this for a living. I will NOT run an eLog, will NOT drive a truck governed under 70 mph, and sure as hell won't have ANY camera in my cab. Plan B is already in place so by this time next year, I'll likely be "retired" from this industry. It's a matter of principle if nothing else, this is nothing like the industry I entered 7 years ago

 

Guys who enter this business today don't know any better. They've never used paper logs, never worked for anyone other than a chicken-hawk mega carrier, and think making $35-40K a year to be gone 300 days is a good deal. Insane! But they keep finding a bunch of saps to agree to it, which screws us all

 

My company gave the cameras a try. The drivers raised a stink and they quietly went away. I for one WILL NOT have it and if it ever becomes mandatory - buh bye trucking!

 

Only 7 years, you didnt even know about the days of no drug testing,or run 10 off 8,running 2 or more paper logs going on & off duty as many times as you wanted..times sure got rough for you huh??..l wont even tell you what a AZ cab card was..

 

No driver facing cameras, no cell phones, no clean showers, no power (for most), no torque, and no Subway sandwiches, but times were good.




Something from a few years back when trucking was trucking.

 

Okay so maybe trucking doesn't pay as good as you like but I fail to see where ANY McDonalds pays better than the worst paying trucking job.

Even $30k a year, which I've never heard of a driver working full time at one carrier for a full year making that little, would be $14.45 an hour for a 40 hour work week.

Yes, there may be instances where the amount earned per hour is lower than what someone who is in management at McDonalds makes but I still fail to see anywhere that someone can make more money per annum working any position at a McDonalds than driving a truck.

I'm just a company driver and I'll top $100k this year so if my employer wishes to install a camera at my place of work, well there's the windshield, knock yourself out. However at the end of the day when I park and go to line 1 or 2 and am on my time I'll pull my windshield curtains shut like I always do and they can watch the back side of the curtains. Of course they would need to have the super secrete access with the super secrete handshake to get into a feature that doesn't exist in driver facing camera's but since everyone has drank the rumor koolaid and believes this exists they can watch the aforementioned curtains.

I listened to 100+ drivers here where I'm at saying they were gone when the company put e-logs in. Most of them are still here and the ones that aren't have either retired or gotten themselves fired. Now everyone is jumping on the camera bandwagon but how many will follow through with it? I heard the line "can't make any money being on electronic logs", yeah really, I'm making more now than I was before them. Yes there have been a couple of instances where I didn't plan my trip correctly and wound up taking a 10 within a rocks throw of my home but after looking back at my trip there were changes I could have made both times to prevent that.

So the same goes with a driver facing camera, if I do something that gets me disciplined from the camera then maybe I should have thought twice about doing whatever it was that got me into that situation. Do I like it, no not really, am I going to quit a $100k+ job over a stupid camera, no, I'll leave that to the people who spend their 10's folding tinfoil hats.