Terry T:
I know newer DPD units have them but from what I’ve been told they have to pay another company to view the footage so no pointy shoes in the office spying on you for no good reason.
There’s a bit of a bureaucratic downside to this. Say if a TM took the SD card out and had a look because of a harsh brake, or something, he might see his favourite driver Dave eating a packet of crisps, and think “ah yeah but it’s Dave, he’s a good sort, I’ll ignore this”.
But an external company wouldn’t see Dave, the good sort, they’d see a “non-compliance incident”. When they provide the incident report to the company, if the company is a large one with a large structure, it could be an area manager two rungs higher than the TM who receives it. He probably wouldn’t directly know Dave from any other driver, and makes the decision to sack Dave. The TM therefore has to sack his favourite driver, who may have otherwise been a good driver.
Terry T:
Maritime but no live feed.
Some now are. I got chatting to one of their drivers who said an article appeared on their internal intranet site titled “We are not watching you”. It was in response to lots of drivers complaining that they could be randomly watched. Maritime said that though their cameras are now viewable remotely and instantly, this was “for the driver’s own protection” and gave an example that “in the event of an accident, a manager can log on to view the situation”.
So that’s alright then.
These cameras really are a case of the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. We collectively now have the power to hold these companies to ransom and get them ripped out for good. If only we could get organised as a nationwide collective, and get it done.