Negotiating out of driver facing cameras

Or maybe that driver is like me, it's just one of my idiocincracies, of any camera, get that blasted thing away from me!

 

Oh please …

Sorry, you don’t know how it works.

insurance companies offer discounts for different policies, training and equipment that can be created/done/installed respectively.

 

Ask for a ridiculous wage or tell them you drive naked.

 

As much as I hate driver cameras as anybody, the arguments that I always hear about why people don't want them will never get rid of them.


1) You have no right to privacy. The truck isn't yours. It's not your home. It's a commercial motor vehicle first and foremost by the law. I don't care if you don't even have a home and run 24/7/365 for a company, it's still their commercial motor vehicle operating on public roadways.

2) That's exactly the point. Everything a carrier does is for their liability, not yours. The safety culture. The training videos they make you watch all the #### time. It's for their liability to prove they didn't hire an incompetent driver. This is not old news or a conspiracy. It's literal facts.

3) Nobody deserves to give you respect. They do not care whether you have 1 month or 1 decade of experience. You're a body in the seat. Business is business. They are not your friends. You want to quit or protest or throw a temper tantrum go right ahead, clean out your truck they got somebody on the way to recover it.

4) That's not even how these cameras work. They pick up on certain events that trigger a 30 second clip. They can't just watch you live. I've been in the office with the software they use at my company (Lytx) and that shouldn't even be a concern. They can set whatever triggers they want to send them clips and no picking your nose is not one of them. However they (the Lytx cameras) can detect cellphone usage, but only holding it up to your head as if talking on the phone. I keep my phone mounted on the dash and I'm always browsing Spotify and my podcast apps, sending quick texts, and dialing 4 for dispatch and the camera never goes off.

 

“everyone was once a noob” -Plato

 

What trucking company negotiates the terms of their safety policies with new hires?

 

Yeah, the first time a plaintiff's lawyer subpoenaed a video I imagine.

 

None that I know of. To most big companies a driver is just a guidance system and corporate decisions have very little to do with a driver's feelings or requirements.
If a company treats a driver better than it has to it's because the company has realized that employees do better work when they're content with their job.

 

If it's a good company and you have done your research, sign on and drive a full month. Prove to them you know what you are doing, then cover up the camera.

That's what I did at my previous company. I got one email, something about obstructions to the camera. And they assured me it wasn't on, which wasn't true because I had heard from other drivers it's always on. Anyway I drove with it covered up for months until I resigned. They didn't want to say anything because I was productive and safe- they needed me. Plus I was doing the hard routes into the NE, hills of PA etc...

Current company actually TOLD me to cover it up, so there is no misunderstanding because their policy is no inward cameras.

 

Thats the point, if im going to cam-boy for them, i should get a cut