Knight: Driver-Facing Cameras?

From this discussion one thing I’m getting is that not all driver facing camera systems are created the same. Some function on a very basic level and some are very sophisticated, even using Bio-Metrics. I assume that there are different technologies and different software used by various companies.

Anyone know enough about the systems used to comment on this question?

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.

This all sounds great in theory but there is absolutely nothing to keep someone from passing a test with flying colors only to get on their phone and watch movies while driving when left to themselves.

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.

I would agree because I also hate that everything is recorded these days, but there are very legitimate safety concerns on this one. If you hate all the recording I’d start with your local neighborhood Walmart rather than with trying to nix recording truck drivers at work.

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

Come on man, you’re smarter than this. Really? 😂 They’re more likely to take out an innocent family than themselves. In most truck accidents I’ve ever heard of the truck driver walked away with little to no injuries, even in very serious accidents. Even in the famous fiery wreck on I70 in Colorado a few years ago many people were hurt and killed but the truck driver was unscathed. Besides, as a former company owner yourself, how are you supposed to limit your liability when there is no other way to know if your drivers are putting your company at risk by using their cell phones illegally? We have cops patrolling the roads to enforce speeding and other laws and regs but distracted driving is notoriously difficult to enforce especially for big trucks because the driver is up so high. Often by the time anyone knows the driver was on his phone it’s too late.

Pretty simple, make it federally hands free or it's illegal, then enforce the law. The case of the illegal alien that killed the folks on I 70 a few years ago reinforces enforcement of the existing regulations. I followed that trial extensively. He couldn't understand English sufficiently enought to understand the warning signs for the grade, speed control and truck ramps. Had we been enforcing the mandatory requirement for him to have basic literacy skills in order to even apply for a permit, much less obtain a CDL , we would have saved those folks lives.

Case in point, they just did a week long enforcement of chains on board on 70 a bit ago. Why not a basic English test there as well? While politically unsavory, it's effective.

Pretty simple to pull a drivers phone record and see if he was texting or on the phone at or just prior to an accident. Yet we consider that an invasion of privacy yet not a camera and microphone?

There was 5700 and change fatality semi truck crashes last year. There was 44000 plus slip and fall fatalities. While tragic, it happens. It's less of a problem than many make it out to be. But it will persist and eventually those drivers who are on the phone will eventually wreck themselves (as well as others) out of a job and life.

If safety is the goal, 76 percent of all semi truck crashes occur on frozen and wet roads, we'd help a lot more by mandatory traction aids, increasing the depth requirements of drive tires, eliminating auto coast or givingdriver control of it, and mandatory sciped winter tires on drives during winter months.

Davy, I don't thinkg you're against the gran.

You mentioned the surveillance state: we are long past that. I was a late adopter of FB. Why, because from my military experience, I already knew what we were doing with online imagery. Our smartphones and Facebook have already gotten everything they need from us. The database has been built.

Inward-facing cameras: The cameras don't treat anything, cause or effect. They are there as an unbiased witness to an event or bad behavior. More often than not, it is supporting the driver.

Barrier to entry: yes, it's low. However, using a cell phone is a behavior that cannot be eliminated through teaching. Built into our phones is a technology that can disable a phone if it is traveling at a rate of speed consistent with operating an automobile. This should be automatic in every single smartphone produced and in operation. But, I'm an over-the-top kind of guy on this.

Commercial pilots: Less traffic, lower chance of collision, and the computers are doing most of the flying anyway, not the pilots. Pilots are there in case something goes wrong. I see this like I see the autonomous vehicles; they will always want a human inside to take over if something goes wrong.

Natural selection: yeah, I agree with you here. I just don't want to be on the receiving end of someone who deserves the Darwin Award. By the way; a bicycle helmet kept me from becoming a vegetable when I wrecked at 28 mph. That bubble wrap limited my head injury to a concussion.

I always appreciate reading your side of the argument. Truth be told, if I wasn't married, I would have already retreated to the interior of Alaska, the Carolinas or stayed right here in Pennsylvania and been a homesteader for sure. TRUTH!

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.

Pretty simple, make it federally hands free or it's illegal, then enforce the law.

That already is the law for commercial vehicles. Again my point is that it’s extremely difficult to enforce.

Pretty simple to pull a drivers phone record and see if he was texting or on the phone at or just prior to an accident. Yet we consider that an invasion of privacy yet not a camera and microphone?

Great point. Part of my point earlier is that pulling a drivers phone record afterward is really the only good way we have to enforce this at the moment besides cameras and it doesn’t get enforced until after you’ve already had the accident. A little too late right? Aren’t we trying to prevent these things? As far as invading privacy, I’m not going to argue that it’s good to have a camera on you all day. In this particular situation I do have a hard time arguing that it’s not the lesser of the two evils.

That’s all it comes down to for me. What’s the lesser of the two evils?

At Marten Transportation we had a company app that had to be downloaded onto our personal phones. I know, requiring someone to use their own phone for company business is a whole other can of worms.

Anyway, this app had gps, I think, built in and if it sensed you were moving you could not use it. That could be an idea for operating phones in general while driving. If it senses you're driving it could only take texting/calling commands using hands-free only.

Of course, there would need to be a way to bypass it for passengers but for a solo driver it'd be good.

We've all seen the way texting drivers operate. They go too fast or too slow and swerve as bad as a drunk driver. Anytime I see a rear end or single vehicle accident I automatically assume texting was involved.

Technology like that could reduce the need for companies to use driver facing cameras.

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.

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.

Recently I had an experience with surveillance at an implement dealer. Not as a driver but just for personal business. About a year ago I took my skid-steer in to the Gehl dealer for some work on both the skid-steer and the trailer. Parked the trailer on their lot where they told me to and left. The next night about midnight someone hooked up to it and stole it from the lot. The dealership had a camera but it wasn’t a good enough image to make positive identification, so the police couldn’t make any progress. In the meantime, the insurance for the dealership paid me for the loss, but the investigation stalled. Then about 6 months later, another piece of equipment was stolen at night from another dealership. This dealership had a better surveillance system and they caught the guy and were able to link him to my equipment theft. The police say he is likely to go to prison for a whole string of thefts and drug violations.I hope he rots in jail and the fleas of 1000 camels infest his armpits.

This is just one example of why cameras are considered necessary in our increasingly lawless society.

My present and previous employers have driver facing and forward looking cameras installed. Both have a do not touch policy when it comes to cell phones and drivers have been terminated for messing with their phones while holding them. They where warned several times including verbal and written warnings before termination. My current employer has even more cameras mounted on externally on truck and trailer, including inside the trailers. We also have an app that links to our in-cab eld tablets and the app will not work if the truck is in motion. As long as you are doing what you should be doing you are ok. We are allowed to cover the camera when we are in an off duty status.