I've watched a ton of YouTube videos of various truck drivers & owner-operators. There is a lot of very useful and eye-opening videos for newbies, students, and anyone wanting a glimpse of truck driving. Before YT the only way to learn anything about trucking was to know a truck driver or become a truck driver. These YT videos can remove some of the unknown about the industry.
1. Don't video yourself driving. Don't publish your dashcam video to YT. All it takes is you rolling, ever so slightly, through a right-on-red-after-stop or stop sign and you could be in trouble with your company. If not soon after you post a video, as soon as some psychopath watches your video and decides the color of your truck means you are a space alien and he calls in to your company about your "dangerous driving."
2. YT videos may get a customer's attention. Some customers have a blanket "no recording on our premises" policy. Just recording their building, a blank slab with nothing but paint, could get a junior assistent deputy intern or manager's attention and they start complaining to your trucking company, which starts your company watching your videos, which may uncover 2 violations of the employee handbook about unfair comments regarding out-of-state squrrels or something else very important.
3. If you put videos on YT be anonymous. Don't use your real name, never show your truck name/number. Use fake names like Acme Transport & Gear Jammin' Joey. If you are going to discuss real details be anonymous. If you've used your real name and company only talk very generally about what/where you are, although you might talk about the story your heard from "another driver", ahem. Never mention a real customer, maybe lie or mis-remember about the location. It's better to work on the premise "how could my worst enemy use this video to hurt me?" At least 1 YT truck driver posted a video about failing his drug test.
4. YT videos are the LAST place you should be venting about your company or bad customers. The internet records things forever. It's more likely you get fired telling the real truth about your company or a customer than any problem gets fixed. There countless ways for things you post to YT to come back and hurt you.
5/ If you are watching videos about new driver or new lease-op, owner-ops are making buckets of money, remember many f these videos are posted by guys just getting into the business. They could be speeding toward a cliff, but haven't crashed yet. I'm noticing a ton of "I've been leasing for 2 months and it's awesome" videos and their last video was a year ago. Not many on YT are posting "they're going to repo my truck this week and I owe $18k".
I use YouTube probably more than search engines. You can learn a ton of stuff. But don't volunteer to be on Stupid Drivers Do What or How To Lose Your Job at 2:48 You may have a right to say anything. You may not think anything is wrong with what you said, maybe you're right. But your bosses opinion about what you said may decide if you have a job. You don't have to agree that what you posted was a problem to get fired. Be careful.
YouTube Be Careful, very careful
Discussion in 'Experienced Truckers' Advice' started by tscottme, Sep 19, 2016.
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Here we go again!
snowman1980, HotH2o and Socal Xpress Thank this. -
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Here are some tips:
1. No Truck # shown
2. No Company Shown
3. No ID#/Name Given
Pretty easy, going to be a hard sell to ID a trucker with 15 views on a video without some sort of ID#/Truck# etc.
Also, if you're recording while you're driving that's fine, so long as it's hands/distraction free. Big brother is probably watching anyways. Vlogs are pretty common in our industry. Post processing can fix errors (like California stops). Edit that stuff out.
Lepton1 Thanks this. -
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