Drive cam truckers!!

Wow , I didn't even realize they could put a camera in the vehicle . Huh kinda crazy ..
what exactly are they there for ?

 

Lol. That explains it perfectly , are they gonna give you a award , for being a super trucker ..

 

thought about throwing gang signs to intimidate it. that was funny. don't allow it to intimidate you,as typed by one that has never even seen a driver cam.hope i never see one. so anyway,what are your thoughts on a drive cam dm after 3 weeks?

 

Or simply by not calling to tell them you won't be delivering cause you stayed up late making YouTube videos so your tired....

 

Sygma Network and Melton both have drive cams, though Melton doesn't have them in all trucks yet. Mine does have one. They've both been cameras from the same company, which is a little black box usually mounted up above the dash, that faces both out the windshield and in to the cab. There are other systems out there, I'm sure, but the one most people will probably run in to is the one I'm familiar with.

I've picked up a lot of tricks, a lot of info and a lot of anecdotes about this thing, and here's what I know about it so far...

Long Post Warning! EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT DRIVE CAMS!

If you set it off, it sends the previous 8-10 seconds (may depend on carrier) as well as the following 8-10 seconds (or however long the truck is crashing, rolling, swerving, driving on traintracks, etc.) to a third party, outside your company. The company screens the videos to determine if there's a policy violation, accident, etc. or if you just hit a pothole. I imagine they get to see a lot of potholes. It does NOT, EVER, no matter what that guy at the counter in the truck stop restaurant said, record constantly. Nor can someone push a button and watch you. It's reactive, not active. I don't care what you've heard, that's just not the way it works. I've seen both ends of the system.

Sensitivity seems to vary. Even in different trucks at Sygma, which was all slip-seat, some would go off easier than others. Some of them would go off over speed bumps, others wouldn't go off on the worst railroad tracks, curbs, rocks, etc. you could imagine! If you have one in a truck that's yours for an extended period of time, you'll get to know what its threshold is.

Things that will set it off: Going around corners too hard, potholes, curbs, slamming on the brakes, crashing in to walls, driving over cliffs... Pretty much anything that makes the little G sensor in the camera its self read too high. It's pretty good at knowing when something is going on.

Tricks that don't work: Hanging a hat over it, putting a sticker on it, etc. It defeats the purpose of having it in the first place and if you set it off, you're going to have to explain why they couldn't see whether or not you had your face in a cell phone. And then probably get fired anyways just because you went over a pothole, set it off and had it obstructed. Pulling the wire out doesn't work, either. They know when that happens somehow. Tampering with the camera won't get you anywhere, so just leave it alone and either quit or learn to live with it.

Tricks that DO work: It does seem to help encourage safe driving because "I don't want to set that #### camera off" is pretty good incentive to not drive like an idiot. Take it easy on corners, keep your distance from people in front of you and generally just use common sense (if you're one of the few drivers left lucky enough to be gifted with it) and most of the time, you'll be fine.

I've set my camera off three times in the past four months. Once was the first time I drove the truck, at a stop sign. I was empty, still getting a feel for the truck and the brakes just jerked a bit when I came to a stop. Never heard anything about it. Second, same deal, except slowing down to go around a corner. Never heard about it. Third time was hooking up to a trailer and bumping it a little too hard. Nothing said about that, either.

Why I don't like it: When I drove for Sygma, it became pretty clear that there was a "don't set the camera off mentality" that sometimes even superseded the "drive save" mentality that we're all supposed to have. What I mean is that some of those drivers who may not have as much common sense as us great, awesome, perfect drivers who never do anything wrong (right?) would rather avoid setting the camera off than lock up the brakes, even if they really have to. It's caused a lot of close calls, just because people don't want the camera to record them hitting the brakes hard when maybe they should have. That kind of scared me when I was in the bunk with someone else driving... Second thing I really dislike about it is that it records sound. A driver at Sygma was disciplined for using a certain racial slur shortly after setting the camera off. I may not agree with his usage of that word, but I really don't think a company should be able to discipline you for saying it in the truck, with nobody else present. That sets a bad precedent.

Bonus Info: I set these things off a lot at Sygma and figured something out. When you trigger it, it blinks red for a few seconds. Afterward, the light will either be solid red or solid green. Solid red DOES NOT (see above) mean it's still recording you, it means that it hasn't sent the video up to the third party and nobody has reviewed it yet. Sometimes that just takes a few minutes to happen. Other times... It never does. At some point, usually in the 2-5am range, the camera will reset. The light will blink red and green for a while without having been set off, and that just means it's clearing its memory or something and resetting the camera. If the light stays red and the camera resets before the video gets sent, that video is gone forever and nobody will ever see it. It took me a while to figure that out and I had my suspicions that was the case, but I confirmed it one night when my co-driver did something REALLY stupid, set the camera off, the light stayed red, and he never heard anything about it from the company.

That there's everything I've learned about the drive cams.