Challenging Driving Scenarios

But unfortunately most drivers don’t tend to do what they’re supposed to when no one is watching. Don’t even get me started on pretrips…

Maybe just a lot of drivers. Idk about most

Playing devil's advocate here, can you really blame a company for thinking driver facing cameras are a good idea? Drivers have proven over they years that they can't be trusted. Seriously, how many times have you passed a driver holding a cell phone-it blows my mind. Talking about companies wanting experienced drivers, we had to fire a 30 year driver last year for a cell phone ticket-if a company can't trust him, what makes you think they'd trust any one else? I say make driver facing cameras mandatory, we can't seem to police ourselves, so maybe someone else should.

Yes, you make a valid argument. Cell phone usage is not the worst offense. I sometimes see a driver with a tablet propped up on the dash with a video or movie playing.

Driver facing cameras? I look at it that if I am not doing anything wrong, why should I worry?

Insurance companies and lawyers get bashed all the time. But the liability issue has actually made driving safer as companies implement practices to keep things as safe as possible. Are the requirements irritating at times? Yes they can be, but I appreciate anything that can make me a safer driver.

I agree with you regarding driver facing cameras. My thought is also that people go to work and have cameras watching them work all day doing all kinds of jobs. Why should driving a truck be any different? It's simply a matter of employers wanting to see what employees are doing.

But unfortunately most drivers don’t tend to do what they’re supposed to when no one is watching. Don’t even get me started on pretrips…

Maybe just a lot of drivers. Idk about most

Don’t be shy, tell us what you think about pre-trips, lol

Like many drivers, I have to park overnight at truck stops and rest areas. Never ceases to amaze me how seldom I see anyone pop the hood and do a pre-trip before getting on the road.

And I will admit one thing. If I park for my 10 hour break and do a decent post-trip, I don’t pop the hood again in the morning for a pre-trip. What I always do is to get out and walk around the truck to check things out before getting started. Gotta make sure no one tampered with the truck while I was sleeping, especially the fifth wheel/trailer connection. Even then, I still do a tug test because I’m probably OCD and paranoid.

When I was in training, one of the instructors who had driven for many years, told me that his king pin release was pulled 3 times during his driving days. Scary.

But unfortunately most drivers don’t tend to do what they’re supposed to when no one is watching. Don’t even get me started on pretrips…

Maybe just a lot of drivers. Idk about most

Don’t be shy, tell us what you think about pre-trips, lol

Like many drivers, I have to park overnight at truck stops and rest areas. Never ceases to amaze me how seldom I see anyone pop the hood and do a pre-trip before getting on the road.

And I will admit one thing. If I park for my 10 hour break and do a decent post-trip, I don’t pop the hood again in the morning for a pre-trip. What I always do is to get out and walk around the truck to check things out before getting started. Gotta make sure no one tampered with the truck while I was sleeping, especially the fifth wheel/trailer connection. Even then, I still do a tug test because I’m probably OCD and paranoid.

When I was in training, one of the instructors who had driven for many years, told me that his king pin release was pulled 3 times during his driving days. Scary.

Dear Truckers, I am a student and am working on a research program in truck driver assistant systems. Can you please advise following questions?

1. what are the most challenging scenarios for truck driving in the dark night and harsh weather? 2. Do you think the drowsy/distracted driver detection systems infringement your privacy?

Your feedback is highly appreciated. Best.

I am so excited to find so many replies that are very valuable for our research. There are a lot of good discussions on the driver-facing camera. I read through them word by word. This is a fantastic community.

Thank you all!

And I will admit one thing. If I park for my 10 hour break and do a decent post-trip, I don’t pop the hood again in the morning for a pre-trip. What I always do is to get out and walk around the truck to check things out before getting started.

Oh yeah I’m the same way. I spend most of my time on the post trip because I’d rather catch issues before my 10 rather than right before starting my day. I alternate between popping the hood in the pretrip vs the post trip.

But unfortunately most drivers don’t tend to do what they’re supposed to when no one is watching. Don’t even get me started on pretrips…

Maybe just a lot of drivers. Idk about most

Don’t be shy, tell us what you think about pre-trips, lol

Like many drivers, I have to park overnight at truck stops and rest areas. Never ceases to amaze me how seldom I see anyone pop the hood and do a pre-trip before getting on the road.

And I will admit one thing. If I park for my 10 hour break and do a decent post-trip, I don’t pop the hood again in the morning for a pre-trip. What I always do is to get out and walk around the truck to check things out before getting started. Gotta make sure no one tampered with the truck while I was sleeping, especially the fifth wheel/trailer connection. Even then, I still do a tug test because I’m probably OCD and paranoid.

When I was in training, one of the instructors who had driven for many years, told me that his king pin release was pulled 3 times during his driving days. Scary.

When do you check the oil? This IS a test question from me.

Check oil? I don’t know if this is a question for me, but I check it every time I open the hood. This can be a post trip, pre trip or when I fuel up. If it’s at a post trip, I do it last, just before I close up the hood in order to let the oil settle. But a pre trip oil check is best because then all the oil has settled and you can see if there has been any oil leaking overnight onto the ground.

So what’s the correct answer to the test question?

Agreed. The lights are getting ridiculous. Especially on those two-lane twisty roads in the middle of nowhere.

The biggest issue I have is headlights of other vehicles that are excessively bright. That could be using aftermarket lights (especially light bars), out of alignment, or just running with their brights on regardless of traffic. Harsh weather people driving without lights and the lines on the road being more difficult to see in some states.

Many drivers feel this way. Personally, I don't care. Pardon the visual, but what are drivers afraid of, getting caught picking there nose? It's not a big deal. If anything, I think it helps paint a more accurate picture of a drivers habits behind the wheel. Once I shutdown for the day I pull the curtain and that's that. Who cares if they can hear anything? There's nothing going on in my truck except eating and sleeping.

That story about your driver is terrifying. Personally, with the tech we have today, I feel we can make it so the vehicle won't operate if the phone screen is being viewed by the driver.

On that note, I won't allow anything like a "smart" TV or refrigerator or anything other than a phone in my household. I owned a small, local tech company. I installed, maintained and repaired computer systems, televisions, appliances, you name it. I told people then, and I'll tell them now, whoever has access to the smart device (say the MFGR or a government entity) can turn the camera or microphone on, at-will. That is not a conspiracy theory. I'm not saying they're listening all the time. But they can, if they ever want too.

To chime in on the rabbit hole we’re going down about driver facing cameras…

I HATE driver facing cameras…but I have a different perspective on them at this point and have wondered if we should get them at my job.

I work for a small/medium size company with around 200 or so drivers and I am one of two lead drivers on a fleet/crew of about 15 drivers. I have personally road tested and/or trained the majority of the drivers on this fleet and have been here longer than all but one of them so I’m fairly well acquainted with most of them.

That said, being in a position where I have more awareness of the other drivers and their driving habits, I’m absolutely appalled by some drivers’ cell phone use. The company obviously does not condone it and safety has really started cracking down on it lately but it amazes me just how many of the drivers are more concerned with getting caught than they are with actually curbing their behavior.

The reason I’ve wondered if we should get driver facing cameras is the EXTENT to which I’ve personally seen or heard of drivers using their phones while driving. We had to let two drivers go recently for other reasons but both of them were the worst I’ve ever seen. One was actually a lead as well and would watch YouTube/TikTok/news while driving—mind you, we are local drivers driving in and around Denver all day so lots of cars around. I know this because (1) he did it right in front of multiple trainees and (2) he admitted it to me himself. He didn’t even see it as a problem and said he was one of the safest drivers on our fleet because he didn’t speed—I’m not making this up. He was recently fired for an at fault accident on the freeway. He insists he wasn’t on his phone at the time but there isn’t a single person I know that believes that.

The other driver we recently let go was just as bad. I rode with him one time because my truck was being repaired and his performance was lacking so my boss had me ride with him for a day to see if he needed any retraining. While he was driving he took a call and held the phone to his ear for around 20 minutes or so and barely checked his passenger side mirror the whole time (and he was speeding). And after that he kept texting and driving, like…a lot. I wasn’t a lead driver at this point but I did call him out for it regardless because I believe that’s our responsibility as professionals. He stopped doing it but still made sure to let me know he’d been driving for 10 years and never had any accidents or tickets.

There have been other drivers that asked me before coming on here or soon after being hired about our cell phone policy. Of course I tell them our policy is the same as the law—the company doesn’t care if you talk all day on the phone as long as you aren’t distracted and don’t break the law (holding the phone, reading/texting, watching movies, etc). Their next question and the more concerning one is when they ask how strict the company is and if they’re watching. I tell them the company is strict and so am I.

I understand know one including myself is perfect but there is a huge difference between “not perfect” and watching movies and texting while driving 75 mph in a loaded rig in traffic. It’s absolutely terrifying. I’ve asked safety what we’re doing to curb the cell phone use and they are able to gather some incriminating videos from the dash cams sometimes but unfortunately there just isn’t a helluva lot else they can do without driver facing cameras. I do think and hope that my bringing it up with my crew helps, and as far as I know the rest of the drivers are pretty good about it. But unfortunately most drivers don’t tend to do what they’re supposed to when no one is watching. Don’t even get me started on pretrips…

Again, personally, yeah I hate the inward facing cameras and I don’t want them but at the same time what other solution will adequately address the issues at hand?