AI Driver Facing Cameras, how’s it going?

Recently my company decided to take the plunge and implement driver facing cameras, so I wanted reach out to other drivers and open a discussion about how companies implement the systems, and what impact they have on drivers.

For example are the systems passive or are do they have AI tools? What levels of monitoring takes place and how much coaching is being leveraged by the cameras? Did your company have a coaching system in place before they implemented cameras or did the coaching system come with the camera? Is your company using the camera to monitor your actions or are you triggering the camera with your actions.

A little bit about how my company is going about implementing driver facing cameras, we transitioned from using the PeopleNet system with forward looking cameras to the Motive (Formally Keep Trucking) ELD’s with both forward facing and driver facing cameras. We further installed cameras looking at our decks to monitor freight when the truck is parked. Along with the Motive system came a much more robust driver coaching system that allows our safety team to more effectively monitor compliance to speed, driving dynamics, seat belt use and checks to see if the driver holds their phone while driving.

We had a group of drivers test the system ahead of implementation and provide feedback which thankfully the company listened to before implementing the full system. As a result, the interior camera is only powered on when the engine is running and the parking brake is released, the AI system while capable of monitoring sound and watching for driver distraction is limited to events triggered by a driver like sudden braking or setting off the vehicle stability system. It will also be triggered by running a red light or stop sign or as mentioned above holding your phone while the vehicle is in motion, you can however if the phone is mounted interact with the phone without the camera being triggered.

For my part I have mostly positive things to say about our implementation so far, the biggest impact to my driving has been the speed monitoring which has nothing to do with the camera and more to do with the robust coaching dashboard provided by Motive. Every Monday we receive a “safety score” and all coaching events are made available to the drivers for review simultaneously with the notification going to safety. Our company further reviews any event within safety and removes the event if they feel it was inconsequential like when a 4 wheeler cuts in front of you and breaks triggering the following distance warning.

@Staff please relocate this if I have placed it in the wrong location for this discussion and I look forward to what others have to say and how the systems are being rolled out or used at your company.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Well, I'm the skeptical type, and you couldn't prove to me for a second, that it's not on all the time. For me, it crosses the line as to why I became a truck driver to begin with, it got me away from such things, like the boss. I've never had any cameras watching me while I drove, that I know of, one is watching me right now, I bet, and a recent rental car I'm sure had one and follows the mindset, like drugs, if you have nothing to hide, why should it bother you? Well, it does. I'm all for forward facing cameras( that probably look at you too) but a driver facing camera goes against everything we held dear. Sign of the times, and cameras are everywhere today, not just your dashboard. Think "Enemy of the state",,,that movie creeped me out, and I bet is true. The fact a company thinks they need a "coaching" system for their drivers,, blows me away. That's a new low. I guess it's a matter of pride, yeah, I did that for 35 accident free years, without coaching of any kind. I don't mean to bash your post, but for an old timer, NONE of that was ever needed. We just drove the d a m truck. Times sure have changed, good luck with the future.

 

Me too, a lonely profession, which is why we like to talk when we get together, but that is at our disgression and choosing. Sadly I think it is the way things will go and I am well pleased that I am long retired now and out of it.

When I started there were no mobile phones, if I wanted to talk to the boss, I needed to have 4 pennies and find a red phone box (UK). I also found my own backloads that way too, with alot more than 4 pennies sometimes, and only then phoned the boss to tell him where i was going next.

 

For some companies its causing high turn over. But even with more people leaving than coming. Some of the executives at these companies live and swear by these cameras. Whats funny to me is the so called coaching. Most of these dweb neck twerps have never driven or been inside a truck for anything. The only time they've seen a truck interior is from the camera.

It amazed me that drivers meet the hiring criteria of xyz company. But then that company has to go beyond that and monitor the drivers. Because office people can keep drivers safe. So a desk jockey can keep several people safe that are actually out diving?

The micromanagement that I've heard about with the cameras is ridiculous. But the cameras with the AI are just horrible!!! I couldn't gather a camera talking to me all day. That's a new level of nagging!

 

That would definitely be the sign for me to move on, at my French company all my reload info came via the incab phone and it became a bit of a joke because I was always saying, in French, spell it, spell it. I had to make sure. My French is good but if they talk too rapidly I could get lost. Then they decided to put a great big screen in the cab, about a foot square, on which they could put it all in writing. Great, but it was so big and heavy that it pulled out of its bracket and landed on the floor, but I could still read it there so no problem. But when it was first in I was far away and all of a sudden a voice started talking to me, it was a technician testing it and he was telling me exactly where I was, just turning into a routier (truckstop) for lunch. That did it. I turned it off and just turned it back on when I needed a new address.

@Winnyf1 Can you turn it off? If you can, way to go.

 

I never had phones in the truck. You were given an assignment, and expected to carry it out. No news was good news. None of this "where are you now" every 5 minutes. Amazingly, the world still turned. Fact is, when I got my union job in late 90s, they had cell phones in the cab. The 1st time that sucker rang, I almost went through the roof. It was just a sound I was not used to hearing in a truck.

 

I know what you mean @201, fortunately for me the French have a sense of humour, different, but there nevertheless. I was empty in Lyon one morning and rang for new details. Denis, my freteur (despatcher) gave me a name and then a good bit more and mentioned the name Gerland. I assumed that was the name of the town of my reload. I looked it up and it was several hours north so off I went. After a couple of hours the phone rang again, 'where are you' he said? 'On my way' I said, 'don't worry'. And again, another hour later and I got annoyed with him and told him I can't go any faster. Eventually I arrived at Gerland. It was a very small village, a few houses, but definitely no industry. I rang Denis and said just one word, a French favourite, 'catastrophe'. Apparently he had been giving me directions to my load, which was in Lyon, from where I had just come, and he was trying to direct me by mentioning the name of the local football stadium, not a destination. As a distinctly not football fan, I had never heard of it.

They loaded me from nearby where I was and on the Saturday when I went into the office I decided attack was the best form of defence. 'Denis' I blazed, 'when you give me a load just give me the address, I don't want directions, if I need those I can climb down from the cab and ask a local who no doubt will know it better than you'. To my amazement the whole office, Denis, other despatchers, the boss' son, the boss, all burst into howls of laughter. I wasn't expecting that, because in England it would have been me who would have been in the doghouse and the way to deal with that is hang your head, or come in all guns blazing. I love the French, must be why, 21 years after I retired, I still live here amongst them and sometimes, share a drink and a laugh with that boss, now retired himself.

 

Luckily we still only have the outboard cameras turned on here, but this push for cameras in trucks is really being pushed more by insurance providers, and fleets that opt to implement the technology get discounted rates. Insurance is quickly becoming one of the top costs for fleets, our fleet had been with the same provider for the last 7 years, at renewal they tried to jack the rate up by unseasonable amount. So they shopped the market and were shocked at what rates were going to. In the end they changed providers, but with “nuclear” verdicts becoming the norm insurance companies that are willing to insure a commercial fleet, are dictating to fleets the terms of being insured at a reasonable rate.

 

Lol when I turn the truck off the camera turns off. Actually I’m fortunate that we don’t seek to micromanage drivers here so they turned off much of the active management. If all that were turned on, then yes as much as I love working here I’d have to be seeking an exit.

 

Thanks for the overseas comments, yes I’m also of an age where I remember using a pay phone, both in the USA and across Europe and Britain. Times have changed with technology that so closely monitors how we work, in the office following COVID its crazy that some companies were not only watching their workers at home through their PC cameras, but were also looking at keystrokes to make sure the workers were actively working the number of hours expected.

Something I did not elaborate on is the fact that I work for a privately held firm and not one of the megga’s, they are working hard to keep a small company feel as we grow to a 300 truck company - though competing with the larger 2,000 plus truck firms means we need to keep an eye on our CSA scores and our costs so when an insurance company offers significant savings we just can’t pass on the savings as we are being pushed to provide some fairly competitive rates at large accounts in an environment where the spot freight market continues to be very depressed.