Smile for the camera, but keep your eyes on the road

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Updated Apr 16, 2014

I recently interviewed a few executives of Lytx, formerly known as DriveCam, which includes video in the safety analysis programs it offers fleets.

Lytx and SmartDrive are two of the leading vendors for truck video systems. These can involve forward cameras, to capture accident scene detail, and dashcams to capture driver performance. (You can read more about use of video by Lytx, DriveCam, Meritor Wabco and Bendix in the links at the bottom of this story in Commercial Carrier Journal.)

SmartDrive says its video event recording technology, combined with the rest of its system, can reduce collision costs up to 70 percent.SmartDrive says its video event recording technology, combined with the rest of its system, can reduce collision costs up to 70 percent.

DriveCam and Lytx are selling results based on much more than video, such as ECM and GPS data. “What we try to do is improve driver skills,” said Lytx Marketing Director Chris Silver. “One tool in that happens to be video.”

Silver was curious about driver opinions, since most of what they hear about in-cab cameras is, predictably, negative. In fact, one of the new Lytx features is that customers will have the option of rewarding high-performing drivers by turning off the in-cab camera, while leaving the forward-view camera operational.

Even though the safest drivers rarely, if ever, trigger the in-cab camera by exhibiting unsafe behavior, such as hard braking, most drivers prefer driving without the possibility of it coming on, she said.

After all, having anyone’s camera inches away from you virtually the entire time you’re doing your job, and knowing that you don’t have control of the on/off switch, has to be unnerving, even if you’re the safest driver on the road.

Any comments from those who have been driving with a company video camera trained on them? 

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