Energy On The Offensive™ #006 - Pros & Cons Of Driver Facing Cameras

Pros:

We have all been traveling on the interstate and have watched semi-trucks and service vehicles veering out of their lane. When you muster up the courage to pass them, you see they are on their cell phone. People are terribly distracted today, we all know it. As the owner or manager of a company, millions of dollars are at stake and we don’t want our drivers/employees distracted when behind the wheel of a company vehicle. Driver-facing cameras help prevent distracted behavior since most systems alert you if a phone is detected in the hands of a driver. The cameras create accountability.

The other benefit is when an accident occurs, you know exactly what your driver was doing leading up to the accident. This prevents a plaintiff’s attorney from speculating and attempting to build a distracted driving case that isn’t warranted. It also gives you more information to proceed forward with such as: Do we keep the driver? Should we push to settle this case fast?

Cons:

I recently had a client’s driver get involved in an accident. The third-party and their vehicle were stopped in the main lane of travel on the interstate at night. By the time my client’s driver saw the vehicle, it was too late to stop or completely evade. They have driver-facing cameras and when reviewing the footage, you can see that the driver isn’t physically distracted but he is bobbing his head up and down excessively while listening to music. He isn’t distracted but he is also not at 10 & 2, highly alert either. The defense attorney assigned by the insurance company believes this is going to be a problem and a jury might see the driver as distracted. I am not sure I agree and believe they should do mock jury research before jumping to conclusions. Regardless, we cannot expect drivers to be robots when driving, and plaintiff attorneys will try to exploit anything they can.

Another challenge is getting your drivers to accept the driver-facing cameras and not jump ship.

Summary:

There is no right or wrong answer to this. My personal opinion is with the increasing use of social media and older drivers retiring and being replaced with a younger generation, driver-facing cameras have a greater benefit than a negative. Many companies have successfully transitioned drivers to be bought into the benefits of driver-facing cameras and did not have anyone quit.

Reply and let us know what your thoughts and experiences have been!