New Camera System Coming to all company trucks.

Good thing I don't have an Android or Apple phone. I don't text while driving, and have a bluetooth device for phone calls. If somebody wants to track my location, it would require a warrant approved by a judge, meaning probable cause exists to believe I had done something wrong. A minor incident isn't going to rise to that level. However, in a minor incident where nobody is injured and only property damage exists (say a car attempted to pass on the right shoulder as you were making a right turn and you crunched it), if a civil suit is filed they WILL have a right to see that driver cam footage because it exists. Their attorney WILL scrutinize the footage to push some of the blame for the crash onto YOU even though THEIR client was attempting an unsafe and illegal maneuver at the time of the crash. That is the only way they will get paid, and the driver cam makes it easier for them to do so.

And yes, you are "on camera" because if the camera is not constantly recording, it would only show footage immediately following the triggering event...not the time leading up to it. If the camera's memory card holds more than the 10-20 seconds they claim it will save, the footage for as long as it takes to fill the card will be accessible, so that plaintiff's attorney will have HOURS of footage to sift through, not just a few seconds. Until it has been overwritten, it is accessible.

And depending upon the settings, it may trigger quite frequently. I recently bought a dash cam, and in less than a day it had filled the card with saved files. Potholes, railroad tracks, twisty hilly curvey fun little 2-lane roads, parking lots, etc...even on it's least sensitive setting, nearly everything was triggering it to save the file...so I reformatted the card and turned off the sensor so that it only saves when I push the button. This is an outward facing camera that I control. The company doesn't know I have it, and in an incident the other person won't know I have it until such time as I CHOOSE to make its presence known. A company the size of Swift, that has announced publicly that they are installing these cameras, well now EVERY lawyer of EVERY individual with a claim against Swift WILL start requesting the footage from these cameras. They know it exists, and they know there will probably be something in there that they can use to get more money for their client. Driver facing cams CAN AND WILL BE used against the driver, just like store surveillance videos catch employees stealing from the registers or put faces on the criminals that hold up the joint. Cameras are used to identify and prosecute far more often than they exonerate the individual under the added scrutiny.

 

So, in other words, we don't trust in your abilities and we want to babysit you.

Instead of ensuring we hire and train quality people we will let the electronic sensors decide when you may have made a mistake and the camera will give us a nice clear picture of everything that may have contributed to you making a mistake so we can fill out a form and then let you watch a video after which you will now be a good safe driver.

Everything will look good on paper.

 

I would be very interested to hear from you, if heaven forbid you did have an accident, and your company had a driver facing camera trained on your every action.
You do what you need to obtain and retain a job, no one can fault you for that, but it is by your choice that you will drive for this kind of company. The results of this partnership should not be eligible for sympathy when that hammer drops and drop it will. Your partner in this has to choose between paying out a settlement or passing that responsibility to you and getting another warm butt to occupy that seat of your former tractor. That driver is the facts of life.

 

its funny though my friend is on a dedicated account with Swift. but he does mostly night runs he basically works from 8 o'clock at night to 8 o'clock in the morning. I told him to buy 2 ir lights 12v they are 7 bucks they're not super useful during the day unless you shine it right into the camera but at night it will wash out the camera won't be able to see crap and you don't even have to point it at the camera at all. they contain 48 small little light bulb but what's awesome there naked to the human eye so we can't see the light that Is omitted from them but a camera picks it up. granted I'll give that about 3 to 5 days before they complain and tell him to stop it.

 

Ok Tim here is an exercise for you. Try for one day of driving you remain alert to all your actions in and behind the wheel. Make a mental note of all the things that would consider being called a distraction. I say metal note because to jot it down would be another distraction. I wonder if you would start to see what others are thinking?

 

I don't think I could remember that many mental notes. Sounds distracting.

Now here is an exercise for you. Go back and read the post of mine you quoted. Not just the first sentence but the whole thing. Then tell us what you think I was saying.

 

Tim I too missed your sarcasm. I posted that answer just after I read your post and as I read on after I posted, I saw more of where you are coming from.

 

That's OK. Obviously I suck at sarcasm. Or, you swifties really do lack observation skills and do need a nanny cam.

 

Ok...so just to clear things up, was this post sarcastic in nature or not? Don't need 3 more pages of people taking you seriously if you weren't being serious.

 

for the love of God people tim was being sarcastic if you look at the quote he was talking about you can see he was being sarcastic if you can't please stop reading the forum