New Camera System Coming to all company trucks.

OceanDan, are you very sure that the new company won't bring in the Big Brother cams?
It is all the rage right now, after all.

And I don't think you need a letter. Just get close to home and clean out/drop off your truck at a terminal, and tell your DM that you won't be coming back.
If you send a letter before you are there, you may end up being stranded somewhere.

Good luck to you. Please stay connected to the Swift forum to let us know how you are doing.?

 

I'm not arguing in favor of driver cams, by any means, but your posts do bring up a question for me repeatedly.
If you're so convinced they're out to get you, then I doubt it was the cameras alone which made you feel this why... so why have you stayed on with them until this point, or even drive for them in the first place?
I'm asking this of you and everyone else who had their tirades here about the cams. It just seems to me that, if a company is #### to work for when they install cameras, they probably weren't all that great beforehand, either.

 

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This sentence is key to everything. How do they expect someone to LIVE for a month or longer in their truck with "no expectation of privacy"
Holy moly they got balls for putting it so blatant in the swift university acknowledgement. I hope every driver reads this before clicking I accept, because that might just be a wake up call.

 

I don't see it as a "They're out to get you" thing, but rather an "I'm a grown adult, and don't need a #### babysitter" issue. I walked away from a company after 8-1/2 years because they were going to violate federal regs and breech our contract by forcing us to buy a specific e-log device THROUGH THEM, and pay for the subscription THROUGH THEM as a condition of remaining leased to the carrier. The device and subscription they were requiring was complete with real-time satellite tracking, communications, gps, and a whole bunch of other unnecessary and expensive bells and whistles. This system would also give them access to MY truck's ECM, its settings, any codes it might be throwing out, speed, braking, etc...stuff they have no business being able to access because it isn't their truck.

Cameras would be an even bigger intrusion, and the only cameras allowed in my truck are those I own and exercise complete and total control over when it records, what "events" are saved, and who gets to see it. If a company wants to install their own camera in my truck, that's grounds for terminating the business relationship I had with them. I'm not one to go burning bridges, but if the cameras they were looking to install were to be aimed at me while I drive, that bridge would be torched posthaste.

 

They could always get the framework in place for now and fully implement later, It's cheaper to buy 4TB drives than 1TB drives and won't be long before 20-50TB+ drives come out and are just as common as when 10+ GB drives came out and became dirt cheap. Remember when 1GB was considered a lot of memory? Ick, can't even store a single uncompressed movie on that LOL

 

I haven't had that many problems with Swift, and my posts should show that.
They have things in place, like Plus-1, that I think are unnecessary and a waste of time, to put it mildly.

They really are not $%*& to work for though.
For the most part I'm very happy here.

Many of my posts are from a driver's view of things. From my own point of view.
Some are from where the company is coming from because I want to be fair.

The driver cams, I feel, are just a way to incriminate drivers.

The other programs that Swift has implemented have made certain things more difficult for me and some easier, but the camera spying on me 24/7 and recording everything I say even if I cover it?
That is Big Brother, through and through.


Swift is not 'out to get me'.
if they were out to get me they would have fired me several times over for my idle time or out of route miles.

They are out to make it better for themselves.

They see a new tech that might help them in the long game.
I can understand that, but I don't agree with it.

These cameras are recording 24/7, no time off even if the truck is turned off.
They have a 4 GB memory to store at least an hour of past video.
Anyone with the access can view and/or listen by simply downloading a file.


I'm not sure if I will leave Swift over this issue, because it may be coming to everyone in the near future.
Heck, I may leave trucking because of it, if things go sideways.

My posts have simply been to inform others what is possible with this technology.
And yes, I don't trust any company or government official to tell the whole truth about anything.
We, the wee folk, are simply tools.

 

Remember.. a trucking company isn't a trucking company without drivers.

 

Don't click the acknowledgement, even though it says "while vehicle is in motion". They can fire me over this, which will work to my advantage. This will be my only notice to Swift.

 

funny how old man Jerry once said " there are only 2 types of employees at swift; the drivers and the people who support the drivers"

now it seems its the drivers and the people who try to screw the drivers...

 

Another thing to think about is I got a message saying to watch this new training video by May 8th. They want you to click this acknowledgement way ahead of actual install time. Best course of action would be for every driver to NOT click the acknowledgement if you got any balls. I am sure not many people emailed or called the numbers given on previous videos overall. I didn't because I knew I would be asked to sign something and this would be my refusal. I like seeing a person eye to eye when I refuse, and hope it's a terminal manager.