There are two cameras, one facing forward and one facing the driver. The one facing the driver can see a little bit out the driver side window.
From what I can tell, you hit a bump and the green LED starts flashing, alternating red and green. If it turns green, it doesn't do anything, if it stays red, then it has recorded twelve seconds, the eight seconds previous to the bump and four seconds following. There is a button on the camera in case you see something you want to record, hit the button and it will record the twelve seconds, like if there was a crash and the camera didn't go off.
The LED will stay red until the next day or until the truck battery dies. It uploads the videos during the night, or I assume as soon as you get a jump.
Any time I've been harassed about a "camera event", I knew I had set the camera off that day. I have no reason to believe that they are peeking in at me at any given time, it's not a real time camera. It's uploaded to the mothership every night, and each video is evaluated by the company who supplied the cameras. If they decide I've done something unsafe, they will pass the video along to our company and I will be harassed, I mean "coached". And we just love being evaluated and coached by people with little to no driving experience.
We haven't been "coached" for several months, but we've been very busy. I can't wait until the summer when management will have more time to review a 9 month backlog of videos.
Here is a picture (I hope):