Driver Facing Cameras...???

In the case of a bad crash I honestly doubt they would make much of a difference in most cases. Run into a line of stopped traffic and they may help confirm the nature of your error but without them your negligence is obvious, just the exact details may be a little less clear.

I see them as a training aid mostly.

Though my learning is never complete I don't need some flunky in an office telling me when I screw up or what I did wrong. I can figure that out myself.

 

Driver facing cameras are there to take liability
Off of the carrier and send drivers to prison in
Case of serious injury accidents. Nothing more.
There's no other reason. There lawyers will do all
They can to find something the driver did wrong.

It's gonna get to the point where we're going to have
To become owner operators to get away from all this ####.

 

...and like I said, when that starts to happen with enough regularity, the companies that have the cameras will team up with the camera companies to find a few "safety advocate" and "watchdog" groups to join forces and lobby the government for a mandate, just like with ELD's and speed limiters. Got to "level the playing field" , as they say...

 

Every day there's probably 3-4 severe rear-end crashes across the nation where a truck rear-ends traffic on open highways, and probably 90% of those are due to distracted driving, and everybody knows it.

So, with that in mind, I'd say a small portion of "professional drivers" [who can't multi-task] are bringing this on all by themselves. If we can't police ourselves and stop this nonsense, then we have to expect someone to step in and do it for us. This crap is not going to be tolerated for much longer by NHTSA, FMCSA, and other safety groups. Texting fines don't work, handsfree mandates aren't helping so I'm not sure what else to expect as long as these distracted driving crashes keep occurring with increasing regularity.

 

Funny thing is, those wrecks you're talking about seem to be happening with increasing regularity. I think it would be worth looking into how this relates to the upcoming ELD compliance date and the increasing number of trucks running electronic logs, and drivers pushing to make the most out of their hard 11 and 14 hour limits by taking unnecessary risks (such as speeding into and through work zones and such). The mandate was allegedly for "safety"...until it passed, and then the REAL motivation came out, which was "leveling the playing field". Unintended consequences are never considered when drawing up a mandate to level the playing field, and those unintended consequences are overlooked or discounted when evaluating the "success" of such a mandate because "safety" never really was a goal. The increase in trucks running electronic logs certainly correlates with the increase in wrecks...and I'm guessing there may be some causation there, too.

So what sort of unintended consequences might arise from a mandate requiring driver facing cameras? As experienced hands with impeccable records leave the industry because they don't want to tolerate the intrusion, they are replaced by inexperienced steering wheel holders. What does that do for safety? Insurance costs go up because not only are the new drivers having incidents more frequently than the older hands, lawyers regularly use the footage to win bigger settlements in these cases, and many small operations simply close up shop unable to afford the higher premiums. What does that do for competition? It's a win-win for the megas...big enough to benefit from the low wages paid to novice drivers and self-insured to avoid paying 3rd party insurers the high premiums. All they have to do is weather the storm until competition is severely limited and they'll be free to demand whatever rates they decide to charge from that point forward. When rates go up and people start saying "Hey, I think I can make a go of this again", rates are slashed yet again until those people are put under.

Nothing personal....simply business. I have a great dislike to anyone telling me how to run my business when their suggestions cost me money without providing any return on that investment. Barring success on the Hail Mary postponing the enforcement date on the ELD's, that has already happened there. Speed limiters is on hold...for now. Hell, even the sleep apnea testing that the megas found a way to profit from false positives in phony tests was being pushed to have a mandate implemented because it places drivers in debt to the carrier and limits their ability to go elsewhere. This driver cam BS is just the latest in the bad business decisions made by large carriers that will likely eventually be lobbied for in congress by those who stand to profit from such a mandate. It is their MO. Make a bad decision, force it on the rest of the industry. Rather than reversing course, they double down. They already suffered the expense of their bad decision, so they want to "level the playing field" by forcing their competition to undergo the same expense by having that bad decision mandated. Where they can, they've already found a way to profit IF their competition has to follow suit through mandated mistakes...which is why they push hard for the government to regulate.

Follow the money.

 

Don't tell that to me. Tell that to the surviving family members of those rear-ended by distracted truck drivers just noted here in these forums, just in the last 6 months [which is only a fraction of reality]. But I'm pretty sure they're not going to be moved all that much by your historical safety record. I'm also pretty sure most of those who recently slammed into stopped vehicles at 50+ mph had impressive safety history, too. But that really doesn't matter until you've finished the job without hurting anybody.

Apparently, there are others who can't match your level of professionalism. And it is these wherein lies the problem.

 

"That crap"? What did I say that was not accurate (or crap)? The truth?

I'm just playing devil's advocate trying get others to think about how they're going to defend their position and hopefully wake a few up because at our current deadly distracted driving crash rates, they're coming, and not to prove distracted driving, but to try and stop it before it causes a problem.

I've said all I'm going to say on the subject. I don't have much longer to go so I'm not worried about them personally.

Don't let Karma bite you in the ###

 

Those cameras you want won't solve the problem, nor will it bring back the deceased or heal injuries. Want to stop the carnage? Look for the root cause of it AND FIX THAT!!! I'd wager drivers running flat out against the speed limiter "making up time" wherever they can because they can't run the speed limit on the open highway plays a huge roll. Add in the electronic logs, which leave zero flexibility as far as drive time against the 11 and 14 hour clocks pushing drivers to press on a little more than they otherwise might have. I've already stated that it seems these wrecks are happening with increasing regularity the closer the compliance date gets as more companies adopt the ELD's...it's worth looking into. A SEVERE lack of training also plays a role, companies make trainers out of newly minted CDL holders after only 90 days on the job...sooner than that, even, at some companies if they sign their life away with a lease purchase scam. ALL of those issues can be solved WITHOUT sticking a camera in the face of good drivers everywhere. All the camera does is allow finger-pointing after the fact. Have you ever reached for your coffee? Changed the station on the radio? Eaten a sandwich? Looked at your notes to see what exit you're looking for? Swatted a bug that was in your truck? Fail to put your seatbelt on after getting out to look when backing into a dock? Etc., etc., etc... Now stick a camera in your face. If you accidently trigger the camera by hitting a pothole or dip in the road even 1 out of 1000 times you are momentarily distracted, you'll likely have a 5 minute long string of 8 second clips showing nothing but your "distracted" driving in only a few months. You may think you're the perfect driver and never do anything wrong behind the wheel, but I guarantee you are not. NOBODY is.