Comments By Robert B. (The Dragon) yes, I breathe fire and other sideshow tricks

Am I the only one who noticed the name, saw the commentary and knew what would be coming?

The Super Ego driver should have never swerved.

Perhaps I'm just against the grain on this, but the harm in them is that they contribute to the survalience state, help establish a database for facial recognition which in turn leads to centralized control of individuals, think 1984.

All despotic regimes basis for control begins with surveillance of its subjects. With millennials and zoomers, we have two generations that openly embrace mass surveillance and control. I refuse to be a part of it to the extent that I can and still live a reasonable daily life.

In terms of the industry, driver facings cameras treat the symptoms not the cause. The cause is that the barrier to entry is very low. We need better training, testing, ongoing testing to keep your CDL and more selective hiring processes.

To the best of my knowledge, commercial airline pilots don't have pilot facing cameras. They do have better training, testing, qualification standards and enforcement of regulations. The problem that were not addressing is cheap labor, you get what you pay for.

One other thing that comes to mind is natural selection. It's a philosophical argument, but given enough time idiots on their phone will eventually wreck enough to be purged from the industry. Yes, people will get hurt in the process, but that's the reality of living. Their behavior doesn't benefit the society as a whole, and by its own nature will take them out. Instead like many other things in society, we want to turn everything into a safe bubble wrapped environment that's nice and safe and happy. The price for that world is individual freedom.

Here we go with Darwin again. It takes a very wild imagination to connect the issue of driver facing cameras to the theories of Darwin. Quite the stretch.

Much of the proliferation of surveillance and cameras has come not because people are evolving but because people are devolving and therefore crime is increasing. The legal and insurance professions love surveillance to prove their cases or disprove multi-million dollar liability cases.

If people were not inclined to commit criminal acts we would have a very decreased need to record everything. A person doing nothing wrong needs no surveillance but does need it if someone does something wrong to them.

I fail to see any NSA, CIA, FBI or other government type conspiracy behind the ubiquitous presence of cameras and surveillance systems. And therefore little reason for the average honest, law abiding person to worry about being recorded. I view it mainly as there for my own protection. I have a driver facing camera in my truck and barely give it a thought. It would not be a factor for me in applying for or declining any job. If others feel differently, I respect their viewpoint and certainly wouldn’t criticize anyone for objecting to the camera.

There are a number of TT members who have a background in law enforcement. I would be interested in hearing from them about this issue and how they view the growing need for and use of surveillance and cameras.

Interesting that you mention the pay about government agencies and surveillance. The man who invented the cell phone camera, which also led to the advancements in other camera technologies is a man by the name of David Monroe. He's an engineer obsessed with the telephone and also technology. He also founded a company called Phototelesis which was a defense contractor who designed remote image transmission systems for the US government and just about every other allied spy agency from the CIA to Interpol to you name it. Phototelesis now designs radar tracking and surveillance camera systems for fighter jets along with many other systems that the public will never know about. The government always loves to get their hands on ways to monitor people and what they do, yet try to make it seem like it's for the greater good when obviously, it's not. How do I know so much about the company above? My mom was VP of sales and contracting for about 15 years and I spent much of my junior and senior year in high school testing this machines for demonstrations to potential customers. It's very strange that they all wore the very typical black suits and were usually named Mr Smith or Mr Doe lol.

Fuel prices are going up, rates are going down and the economy is quickly racing towards another depression but hey, buy a truck that you're almost guaranteed to lose. If it has a kitty under the hood, a platinum rebuild will run you just shy of 50k. The N14 can be purchased new for just under 40k and a big cam 400 Cummins is just over 35k to rebuild. If that's been a working truck for the last 24 years it's easily a 2 million mile unit or more and unless everything has been replaced with documentation, you're looking at a money pit. That's the kind of truck you throw money at and put in shows, not rely on for your income unless you have a lot of money in the bank to start with.

Many of your massive pileup videos that you see every winter could have been avoided had drivers used a radio, slowed down and taken their feet off the dashboard.

Because a driver on the radio can warn you of potential dangerous situations you can't see ahead. A driver on a radio can give you local directions to a location that your GPS can't find or get you through construction it doesn't pick up on. A driver on a radio can give you real time road conditions, closures and good stopping locations in inclement weather. They aren't the be all end all and yes, there's plenty of crap on there in the bigger cities but it is an important tool.

Simple answer, yes.

People will spend up to 7-800 on a GPS that will still get them lost but don't want to pony up $100 on a radio that can potentially save their life.

Kivi Brothers is another good choice. You'll start out on open deck and work your way up into their heavy haul division but it does take time and you'll have to prove yourself just like any other company that has that division.

Harvey, one thing Michael might need to keep in mind is that while unloading off duty and he has an incident which led to an injury, the insurance company could possibly reject that claim. I know that's not the case at every company but it is the case at many and that could be an absolute disaster.

While there is no required certification or registration for service animals, proper service animals and their owners receive extensive training for the tasks they're expected to perform and also tested and trained for temperament. Not every dog will meet those standards and simply thinking yours will be alright leaves the potential for serious litigation if the dog should react towards another individual. I'd suggest searching out trainers to at least have that peace of mind beforehand.