J.B. Hunt announces inward facing cameras

If you think cameras are bad wait until they make you wear AI to monitor you.

 

Some companies are already doing that. The driver facing camera uses AI to detect drivers state of alertness and responsiveness. Watches are starting to alert on real time heart conditions. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to have them require heath monitoring via something like that or similar. Sensors could also detect mental condition as in anger, etc.

It’s all coming and more if drivers allow it. Right now no driver needs to accept driver cameras as there are plenty of jobs without them. But if drivers ##### but stay anyway then if will continue.

 

It all depends on the camera parameters and what company safety officers view as unacceptable.
We've had em 4 or 5 yrs and at first every time the camera went off it sent a capture photo to the boss. They were set to record the smallest bump and every hard brake.
Too close to a vehicle..
Hit a bump..
Hard brake...
Gas on it acceleration..
Anything.
The boss got 150 emails a day, 7 days a week. Half his day was looking at event photos.
He was at a meeting and asked some other managers about it and was told they turned off all parameters except for actual contacts.
Now they rarely go off and the boss gets rare emails..
Doesn't appear our safety score has changed either.

 

Disclaimer - I don't fully agree with this argument, just presenting it.

Sometime in the early 2000s, JB Hunt 'discovered' that sensors in the truck could detect hard breaking and stability control events (critical events). This technology quickly paid dividends, and other large companies adopted it.

If all of Schneider's dot reportable accidents from 1995 to 2022 were plotted on a graph there are two obvious declines. The first coincides with cutting the speed of the trucks back to 60 mph, circa 1998. The second in the introduction of Crash Mitigation Systems (onguard) starting in 2011. In the middle, each year is within a standard deviation until 2006 when a shallow decline begins.

It could be argued that the 2004 HOS are making drivers less fatigued, or that ABS equipped trailers are making a difference. However the best fit is the introduction of critical events. Preventable accidents and critical events are correlated so heavily that any driver who has 3 critical events in a 60 day period has a 85% chance of having a preventable accident in the next 30 days.

The argument with driver cameras follows the same logic. If the company can identify risky behavior patterns and provide coaching to minimize those behaviors, accidents will drop. To qoute Ronny "trust, but verify ".

As I said at the top, I don't necessarily agree with this logic. It would be better to screen applicants more thoroughly and even better to require competence rather than comprehension to get a cdl in the first place. But both of those cost a LOT more than putting cameras in, so we get cameras. Mercantilism at its finest.

 

Did JB Hunt also announce that their drivers will work harder to be in the way… ride the middle lane, where the left lane is restricted, at least 5 under the limit, oblivious to all other adult drivers on the road, and force drivers to pass them on the right…or follow them on the slow crawl….oh wait…. They already do that all day, every day, every where….

 

Their dedicated drivers are amongst the worst.

 

Totally agree! This is the main problem right here. All the cameras are doing is putting a bandaid on a more serious problem and issue.

 

Putting cameras in the trucks facing forward only and I think putting cameras that record the sides of the vehicle is also a good idea because if somebody decides to sideswipe you and accuse the truck of leaving their lane, the camera debunk that… and yes, raise the hiring standards too many people can get a CDL just by having a pulse and breathing