Swift maybe my way out of here

Chalk lines drawn on the tires makes it easier for a driver to see if the wheels are turning, because if the wheels aren't turning....well you know.

 

The thing with the cameras that a lot of you don't realize is that there isn't enough bandwidth for those cameras to stream video & audio constantly.

That's usually the first thing out of someone's mouth when they hear the word "camera". You figure someone is going to sit there all day long and just watch you through the camera. It doesn't happen and there are several reasons why. Why would any sizeable company want to do that? You'd have to basically double your employee count by having one "watcher" per driver or you could have one person watching 20 drivers at the same time. Again....why?

You think that your company is going to use the GPS on your camera (or other device like a QC) to tell when you've stopped and then immediately start taking pictures of you? Again...why? They'd either have to pay out the ### to have software custom written for them that would allow a program to use that camera to take pictures after your truck has been stopped for X amount of time. Or, they would have to have someone manually activate the cameras on EVERY truck EVERY time it stopped. Neither of those will happen.

Aside from those reasons, there are technical limitations that would make a reliable streaming connection virtually impossible to maintain. The Lytx DriveCam (using it since it's the most popular camera) only records in 640x368 and an "average" 20 second recording takes up around 2MB. The cellular (CDMA) models of the camera take 2 to 3 minutes to upload that 2MB file. That's nowhere near fast enough to stream video using a cellular model. Lytx does offer the DriveCam in a WiFi model as well but there again - no wifi, no streaming. Finally, the cameras can't be triggered remotely either. You have to do something that meets the parameters of the algorithm that causes it to record or you have to hold down the two shoulder buttons to manually record an event.

 

Yeah the captured video is HORRIBLE!!! Like 10fps.

 

I assume that you have some proof of this besides the DriveCam site?

You sound like a salesman.

 

The driver facing cameras are not a big deal. In fact it can be a useful to have it, especially for a rookie driver. It protects you and the company. Just take things easy and safe. Swift is fine to start with. In fact they are better than Werner or CR England.. who pay considerably less from what I have read and can leave you waiting for hours or days for repairs.

 

I don't think anyone expects video feeds to be "live streamed" constantly to some corporate "huge underground viewing/storage center in Nevada". However, I would imagine that random segments are saved for later downloading (maybe when it comes in for service), in addition to hard stop events and impact detention events which would be uploaded immediately and be flagged, and these random segments would be/could be viewed, at random, by safety as available time permitted.

So, in a huge 3,000+ truck fleet, the likelihood of "being caught" doing something against policy is slim, regardless due to the key word "random". However, if your name is mentioned by a "company snitch", one could expect all available random clips available of that individual might be viewed.

And also let's be clear, these are not going to operate while the vehicle is parked and brakes set. You can imagine all you want that some carriers may be prone to do this if you want, but I'm pretty sure they're not and don't want to.

Having said all that, I want to go on the record as being strongly against driver-facing cams, however, given all of the distracted driving crashes that happen each and every week, it's no wonder they are being pro-active and implemented them at more places each month.

 

Schneider has been good to me. Been with them 6 months. If your a military vet then you can make an extra $14,000your 1st year. Hit me up if you have any questions.

 

One driver posted he bobtailed home; his wife ran up to the truck and jumped up on the step which shook the truck. The driver immediately got a nastygram from safety wanting to know why a woman is in his truck.
A Swift driver said he climbed out of his sleeper at a truck stop and the camera was filming. He called the company and they called the 3rd party that does the monitoring and their explanation was that the camera was rebooting, not filming. Sound like BS to me; I wouldn't work for a company with driver facing cameras.

 

Lol..sounds like a heavy woman.

 

I call BS on the first one about the woman on the truck. Right after we got our cameras I made it a point to figure out what the limits of the camera were. Things like how hard you had to turn, what speeds, do road conditions affect it, etc. I literally hopped in a 8,000 pound forklift and starting bumping into one of the KW's with the camera trying to figure out how much of a shock load would be required to trigger an "event". It took me hitting the bumper with the forks at about 5MPH to trigger it so unless that woman was comically obese or the truck was moving at the time, I doubt the story.

The cameras don't normally "reboot" but they do upload any recorded events daily though it is possible that it was rebooting. The time they upload can be configured by the company using them so that it happens at 3am or so. If you're in an area without adequate cell coverage then the camera will wait until you have a better signal to upload the data.

Not a salesman. I can't provide you with a link to back my claim up, just what I was told by our "safety" department after we had the cameras installed. The DC3 can be triggered remotely if an additional device is added to the camera and that would be functionality requested by the company using the camera. It's not a standard feature. Most, if not all, of their technical specifications are proprietary so they aren't easily accessible. If you have one and you're worried about random video being taken, I would suggest you buy or build a Faraday cage.

The cameras record constantly...as long as there is power to the vehicle.
It only has 96MB of storage so it will loop itself until there is an event recorded then it will save a predetermined amount of time before and after the trigger. The company I worked for that had them had theirs set to capture a 12-second block - 8 seconds before the event and 4 seconds afterwards. The accelerometers in the camera have varying levels of sensitivity and when they're installed in tractor-trailers, they're normally set on the highest sensitivity since big trucks aren't as agile as smaller trucks and the accelerometers need to be more sensitive.

The reason they record while the truck is stopped is to capture something like a hit and run in a parking lot. If the truck is stopped and something hits you then you can at least tell your company "I was stopped and in the sleeper / truck stop / whatever...not my fault".



Anyway.......I was pissed when I found out that we were getting cameras installed. At the time I had 7 years driving experience and a spotless record (no citations, inspection violations, DOT reportables, etc.) and couldn't imagine why we were being "punished" by having the cameras. For the first couple weeks that we had them, I spent more time trying to figure out how they worked, what the parameters for recording were, what actually makes them tick (accelerometers) and all kinds of other stuff. I intentionally set mine off, 9 times in one day, so that I could see the entire process in action from recording to the "coaching" by the safety dept. just so I could see what the video looks like on the other end. I wanted to see the video quality, I wanted to see what kind of a view it had in the cab, where the blind spots were, how the audio recording was, could you drown out the audio recording with ambient noise. Short of disassembling mine I learned as much about them as I could.

At the end of the day I think the cameras are an invaluable tool for new drivers. It makes them more conscious of their driving habits and it makes them behave more cautious which is the whole point of the camera. If you're worried about it going off and having to talk to your boss or whoever about it, you'll do what you need to so that it doesn't record an event. It's a psychological tool as much as it is a physical tool.

At the end of the day though, unless you own your own rig, you're at the mercy of the company that does own the rig and if they want cameras in their trucks then you have two options. Learn to live with it or find employment elsewhere.