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ODFL | driver facing cameras

1 Lone Ranger said:
City driver here with some extra weekend runs last year.Made about 75.

Not sure why everyone is all on the phone all the time but there is one group of drivers.Won't name names but they get on a big conference call most nights.Seems kinda silly.And yet I don't know how we ever delivered freight before cell phones.Just need to use good judgement.
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And for the record, there's city drivers who'll be on the phone while dealing with a customer! Not just a linehaul thing. The new breed at OD will promise us all cameras in the trucks no matter what corporate is telling us right now.
 
BillyLo said:
Yet again, no mention of line drivers in that post. We're talking any OD driver. Like us professionals say, if you don't have anything to hide... You should be able to handle a camera facing your face. But no, I see all you drivers Line & City walking around with your mission control headsets babbling as you pull into the yard.

The new OD breed has been doing a great job practicing unsafe driving manners with their texting, talking while driving, tailgating & speeding. These cameras are a much needed piece of a equipment to help thin the herd.
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Thanks for lumping all us newer folks together Billy. Yeah I haven't been here 20 years but you sure do love to paint with an awful broad brush...
 
BillyLo said:
And for the record, there's city drivers who'll be on the phone while dealing with a customer! Not just a linehaul thing. The new breed at OD will promise us all cameras in the trucks no matter what corporate is telling us right now.
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Had one of the new truck school guys who was so full of himself.He got put on a route one day and was running himself crazy.He was behind so pickups started to call dispatch who called him.He couldn't hang.Told the office call him on the handheld not his personal cell.As far as I know they did.

Thing is dude is ALWAYS on his cell.Even had one of my customers tell me he was at the window waiting for bills and talking.Really seems rude to me.BTW he's currently on the dock on a "TIME OUT".
 
kenneth said:
Our system does everything yours does except we do not have the camera facing us.OD owns the system's.
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If you have driven a 16 or 17 freightliner or just look in one look at the radio. two knobs, left knob below and to the left. sure looks like a cell phone size camera
 
That's why OD put those radios in the new tractors so because they knew drivers would always be changing the station and they could look at them while they are driving DMT ..
 
DMT said:
If you have driven a 16 or 17 freightliner or just look in one look at the radio. two knobs, left knob below and to the left. sure looks like a cell phone size camera
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Boy oh boy, truck drivers love thinking there's spy cams in their rigs.

To make no mention of how utterly illegal that is for an employer to do, have any of you actually done the research on these alleged spy cameras? Actual spy cameras have limited recording ability and require a wireless connection to a nearby storage or receiving device. They are not capable of being hooked to a satellite network and the batteries are pathetically short-lived.

A hard-wired camera with the kind of data storage and sending equipment required can simply not be hidden that well. If it's not hanging from the windshield, you don't have a camera. Nobody from the company is spying on you through magic pinhole cameras hidden in your radio.

The government might be interested in your nose-picking habits though.
 
vetran peddleman said:
I was just surfing different company boards...and I came upon your thread on 'driver facing cameras.' I drive for Conway/ XPO and as most of you already know...we've had them in our tractors for several years now. Our corp HQ has told us that the purpose of having 'driver facing cameras' in our tractors is primarily to correct distractive driver behavior and thus prevent unnecessary accidents. The cameras record continuously, but footage is only flagged for corp review when and an 'event', occurs,( 4 seconds before and 8 seconds per 'event'). An 'event' is caused by a hard brake, swerve, impact, rough bump, RR tracks, etc. If a driver is doing something that he/she shouldn't when the 'event' occurs, management will call that driver to be coached with the intent to improve his /her behavior. Coachable distractive behavior includes: eating, no seat belt, holding an electronic device, and things of that nature while his unit is in motion. I know of nobody in our company that has been let go for the afore mentioned infractions. If anyone has been fired from our company I suspect it was not so much the driver facing camera that incriminated him but the outward facing camera. Having said that however...a driver facing camera could be used to terminate a driver ,I think, if it was determined that he was asleep at the wheel and a fatality was involved.

Bottom line...our management has 'driver facing cameras' to help us improve our bad behavior and thus save our company millions on unnecessary accidents...outward facing cameras to save us millions from bogus lawsuits that are dismissed all the time in court when the video evidence shows that our drivers were not at fault.

In the not too distant future, all commercial trucks will probably have drive cams...both outward and inward facing. Check out other boards on this site and see for yourselves. Go to Saia's board and click on their 'driver facing camera' thread and you'll see what I mean. Insurance and big money is what's driving it...nothing personal to us as drivers, just the cost of doing business and staying profitable.
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I know for myself running @ night on a long run, & talking on my cell phone to other drivers also driving, using a wireless head set, helps keep me more alert & awake than anything else. Not to say that works for everyone, but it helps me & some of the road drivers I have known over the years. The USAF gives their pilots of the B-1 bomber & other long range aircraft on long runs (flying out of Barksdale AF Base to the Middle East dropping their ordinance & returning home) bennies or some form of a narcotic to help them make the trip, while driving very expensive aircraft & carrying ordnance that could level a city block. So if the driver facing camera caught me talking on my cell phone using a headset would I be fired? I do know @ ABF they prefer that you don’t talk & drive, but it is not against company policy & there is no discipline that could come your way. Just asking. Von.
 
BIG R GUY said:
If you drive like a professional, leave the cell phone alone until parked, and wait until you are stopped, outside the truck to pick your nose, you should be fine.
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Asking me to wait until I get out of the truck to pick my nose is completely unreasonable ! The line has to be drawn somewhere. My boogers, my business !
 
OK after a little more looking into these radios that spot by the know is a remote control sensor , so where are the remote controls?
 
Freightsup said:
Just to put a different perspective on this. Do you actually think your dispatcher or anyone else has time to waste watching what you are doing all day? The only time I see this being useful is if an accident occurred and it was set up to trigger like the forward facing camera.
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Yes, just talk to some conway/xpo drivers. I hear from them they are called into the office when caught (whatever they did wrong) and have to explain themselves.
 
DMT said:
Yes, just talk to some conway/xpo drivers. I hear from them they are called into the office when caught (whatever they did wrong) and have to explain themselves.
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I work for xpo. As stated in post #28 in this thread, yes, we get "coached" when the drive cam records an "event" and the driver is violating a xpo policy. I know drivers that get "coached" often with no dicipline. Not saying it won't come to that at some point or taken into consideration somehow. Eating or drinking has never been an issue that I know of, and talking on the phone is ok as long as you are using a hands free device. I was tagged for talking on my CB one night, but issue was thrown out. There is no "explaining yourself", they see what you are doing, just don't keep doing it. Simple if you ask me (and I know you weren't)!
 
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