How much privacy should a company driver expect in the workplace?

Is it customary for freight motor carriers to search the personal baggage of their drivers without reasonable suspicion and without notice? If you're a driver, has a customer you've delivered to ever requested to search the cab interior of your truck or any personal gear you have stowed in there? I would expect total privacy in the sleeper area of the truck even a company-owned truck. I'm sure most here don't want cameras watching them as they change their clothes in the sleeper area. Sometimes a loo bucket is used in a sleeper area in emergencies.

What are the legal stipulations for searching the cab interiors of commercial vehicles and personal possessions of drivers by customers and by employers? Remember, your employer is not a law enforcement agency and your customer probably is not as well. This is trucking: not TSA-inspected commercial air travel. Has your company ever requested to comb through your personal bags on the job? If you were wearing a waistpack on your person even, has your employer ever asked you to open it up for inspection?

Here are a few links on the subject:

EPIC - Workplace Privacy.

Workplace Privacy

Workplace privacy - Wikipedia

I would think personal living areas/sleeping areas/quarters for employees even on company property would be taboo places for bosses to just barge into and inspect at random. I can't image a surveillance camera would be permitted by law to monitor a driver's assigned sleeping area.

 

I've driven for Swift, Schneider and Knight and I've never been searched, on my person or the company truck. During the hiring process you sign a bunch of paperwork and one in particular tells you what you are not allowed to have in your possession while on their property or in their trucks. If you violate the terms, well then you are going to be sent packing when caught. Most violations are discovered by the maintenance people when the truck is serviced at the company shop. Sad as it is, there is no presumption of privacy anymore, but I do feel reasonably private in the sleeper area when the curtain is closed up.

 

I can't imagine maintenance personnel would even have any business snooping through a driver's personal duffel bags or suitcases stowed on the top rack of the sleeper berth even to make a repair inside there. Does a driver normally keep his/her personal gear on board the truck when it is in the shop, company or otherwise? I would make it a habit of keeping my all my bags under padlock especially when the rig is in service: army duffel bags are even pad-lockable. Virtually all hard suitcases are lockable. Do drivers normally remove all personal effects from the truck when its in maintenance? Some maintenance workers might even be scandalous thieves. I certainly don't leave valuables (eg. my Garmin GPS) in my car when it goes into Midas for work. Discovered violations might be things one might call 'contraband', alcohol, dope and whatnot.

 

Military base my want you to open sleeper doors if you have then or look inside for passengers. Delivery to a prison same thing , they have the authority to look anyplace they want but I've never had them do much. Border crossing can get intense. Going into a roro port ,they my want to look in the door,ask questions and that's it.
Never been searched any more than that. Never heard of company doing it.

 

I don't remove or lock anything when my truck goes into a company shop for service, but then I don't have anything in there I am not supposed to have either. My truck GPS is such a pain in the ### to remove, they would really want to have it to go through the trouble and it would be such an obvious theft that I am confident no mechanic would want to risk their job for a 4 year old unit that might be worth maybe $50. The shop has cameras watching the mechanics too.

As for expectation of privacy, to me, that only applies to the sleeper when I am actually in it. When I am not in there, it's company property and they are free to do with it as they see fit. I would rather they didn't search my bags in there, but if they did I wouldn't quit over something like that. Who cares if someone now knows what kind of underwear I prefer or the food I keep in the fridge.

About the only time I got angry about someone being in the sleeper was when I got my truck back from the shop and found dirty boot prints on the sheets in my bunk because a mechanic need to do some work on the upper back panel and stood on the bunk to do it. I understand that was the only way to get access but a little consideration in removing the sheets from the mattress would have been appreciated.

 

I would then probably make it a habit of stripping the bed linens from my bunk if I were to know ahead of time a mechanic is going to be working in my sleeper. If I had a hard suitcase or briefcase in my sleeping area it would probably be normally kept locked under key. A company might get suspicious if they were to see a padlock on a driver's military-style duffle bag. Built-in locks are common for hard luggage. Maybe carry along a small plastic sheet to cover the bed if you think the mechanic might use it as a step stool. My briefcase or suitcase under key would secure more valuable things like my Nintendo Game Boy.

 

Why is this even being brought up?

Are you a driver and worry about something.

 

See? No offense to Ridgeline, but that's how they got you, guilty until proven innocent. Sadly, the company darn near owns you and can do anything they want, in the interest of security. I feel sorry for drivers today, couple bad apples, now every driver is a terrorist druggie, heck bent on taking the world down,, and you have little recourse. They tell you to jump, you HAVE to say how high, or sell plexiglass to grocery stores.( probably a better deal today) It, in the past was why many drivers became O/O's, not so much to make their fortune, but to get away from the company BS. It's why I did. Now, O/O is a foolish venture and only the most stubborn drivers, who refuse to give in to company regs, still do it. Too bad O/O's can't "fall through the cracks" like they used to. Trucking in the 20's,,,bend over or get out, they may as well have TSA's and could very well be next.

 

Are you currently a driver or looking to get into the industry?. Some of the terminology you used earlier makes me curious. I thought maybe that might be due to you being from another country (NL?) but who knows.

 

Being in the army, they are very bat-sheey-it crazy about security and locking things up. I'm short and I'm considering company driving career. I want to even know if I can take a crap in privacy.