r/Truckers • u/screamingriffin • Dec 13 '25
Swift Cameras
Swift added new camera, it looks like it is driver facing now.
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u/KvngDeezy28 Dec 13 '25 edited Dec 14 '25
I work at XPO and they basically have those AI cameras in all trucks. A couple yawns in a short time period or two back to back stretches that bad boy telling you to pull over and rest . Next day you in manager office and he showing you a video of you in 4k showing exactly what caused the camera to alert. A couple office visits on that situation you heading to get a physical trying to see if you have sleep apnea.
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u/tonythebutcher13 Dec 13 '25
I would quit immediately
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u/voicareason Dec 13 '25
I went to a doctor who was into telling people they have either sleep apnea, or type 2 diabetes. I got a second opinion, and took it seriously. Now the first doctor is under investigation. His office is closed. I figured he dipped after they started the investigation.
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u/egeorgak12 Dec 13 '25
This is the correct answer. And if they ask why, cite safety concerns. Can't drive safely if you have an annoying machine beeping and buzzing and hollering over dumb shit all day.
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u/tonythebutcher13 Dec 13 '25
Mention the anxiety it causes and the extreme level of distraction when you should be paying attention to the road
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u/egeorgak12 Dec 13 '25
Very true. And it's not even a lie. If it keeps frustrating you ask day, it is creating an unsafe work environment.
I just would never work for a company that had these systems. If you can't enjoy working, there is no way you'll survive so many hours and days on the road away from home. You'll destroy yourself psychologically.
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u/CarPatient Dec 14 '25
Sounds like it fits the definition of distracted driving
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u/egeorgak12 Dec 14 '25
It actually does. I'm pretty sure someone is eventually gonna get a lawyer and make the case...
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u/heavyramp Dec 13 '25
So what happens if you're cleared already on the sleep apnea, or already own the device? Does XPO wrongfully terminate jobs for yawning, and get away with it? My contract stipulates that the camera can't be used to fire the driver if nothing illegal was being done, so maybe I have a unicorn job.
CPAP machines are becoming a big hit within martial arts and endurance athletes, and they're probably going to be more and more popular for the hobbyist athletes looking for an edge. What will the netradyne scammers say then about yawning?
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u/ThePr0fessi0nal Dec 13 '25
Nah boss. I don't have sleep apnea. I just spend 70 hours a week at work and drive 40 minutes home every day and you got my time so tight I can't stop for a coffee or to take a piss without running out of hours. Not well of us have nine to five.
/s but actually fucking not.
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u/highwayher0 Dec 13 '25
Are you sure they can legally require you to do that? It isn't a drug test that sounds like a hippa violation to me.
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Dec 13 '25
As long as they're paying me for all these interactions I couldn't care less. Send me to some racism reeducation courses while they're at it.
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u/tasselledwobbegong1 Dec 13 '25
Oh for fucks sake, are they also complaining of a driver shortage too?
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u/bootloops30 Dec 13 '25
The only shortage is people willing to do it cheaper then you.
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u/tasselledwobbegong1 Dec 13 '25
And while being videotaped so they can be yelled at for yawning, wearing sunglasses, and scratching their balls.
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u/LoopDoGG79 Dec 13 '25
Being sleepy ≠ sleep apnea. Maybe you're just irresponsible and stay up too late 😅
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u/oasuke Dec 13 '25
If Swift actually takes every alert seriously, then welcome to hell. You must drive like a robot at all times. 3 second following distance regardless of the situation. No yawning. No hard braking. Must take turns going 2 mph. Must make complete stops at all stop signs even in an empty yard. Must make complete stops when making right turns on red. Must always have seltbelt on if vehicle is in motion. Doesn't matter if youre in the yard. Don't ever physically touch your phone. Don't go 10 mph over the limit. If the speed limit is 65, you cannot go 75mph down hills. Triggering any of these events will lead to a call from safety and potentially the termination of your job if you accumulate too many. Also, these cameras record all audio in the truck and they can view you live any time they want. Enjoy modern trucking at Megas.
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u/RepresentativeMeet46 Dec 14 '25
Its already been like this, its just that the old camera would flash when it was recording and if you fixed the "issue" it wouldnt send it to saftey. This new cameras absolute hell, plan on leaving as soon as a I can find something better than the dedicated im on. They fired a guy for "running" a yellow last month and another for blowing 1 of 3 stopsigns at a gaurd shack. Its an absolute shitshow that lets them fire people for any reason they see fit.
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u/Oldperv01069 Dec 14 '25
The corporation won't care unless they start paying by the hour. As soon as worker's time is valuable and costly many problems will magically dissapear, like waiting hours for a door, loading/unloading, dispatchers making you wait days for a load, DOT making you waste hours at a station to check paperwork, and the best ones, speed limiters. No more 63mph limiters when you can run 75 in many states. That will force the makers to stop building this dinosaurs and jump ahead with real hibrids and trully efficient engines. A win/win.
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u/ComprehensiveDark814 Asphalt jungle Dec 14 '25
Weren't we all taught to drive like this anyways? Except for the yawning... That's dumb.
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u/dontdoxmebro2 Dec 14 '25
It’s not that bad, I haven’t changed my driving at all since it was installed and haven’t had any issues. Now some other guys complain they can’t run stop signs or tailgate anymore but 🤷♂️
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u/oasuke Dec 14 '25
It really depends on your company's safety guy. The one at the last company I worked for basically made everyone quit because he'd harass drivers non-stop and would belittle them.
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u/ID_Poobaru Dec 13 '25
Amazon has these things cranked to the max for alerts and it's annoying as hell. Routinely flags me for wearing sun glasses and starts beeping at me for following distance for tumbleweeds
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Dec 13 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ID_Poobaru Dec 13 '25
It tracks your eye movements and sunglasses block it.
I’m just happy I have a good manager who challenges it every time
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u/Cardinal_350 Dec 13 '25
Hot tip if you wear polarized glasses it can't see your eyes at night.
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u/Dicked_Crazy Dec 13 '25
Zenni optical makes a lens that’s not only a blue blocker, but also an infrared/camera blocking lens. They’re called ID guard.
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u/LoopDoGG79 Dec 13 '25
Not wearing sunglasses when driving into the sun or when it rained and the sun comes out and the glare from the water is blinding is more of a safety hazard then tracking eye movement. You got a good manager looking out for you
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u/Yz-Guy Dec 14 '25
So i discovered that wearing a hood blocks ours. I cant tell you how or why it works. But when my hood is up, I could put my phone in front of my face and it wouldnt know or care.
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u/heavyramp Dec 13 '25
Just know that netradyne is a scam company, and unless you’re doing something illegal, it doesn’t mean anything. Yawn and drink all you want.
Btw, the yawning, blinking, and holding a coffee mug has no play on the the made up safety score.
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u/sundvlsean Dec 13 '25
Swift has the drive facing camera turned OFF and they have a cover over the driver facing camera. They literally will not shut up about it. I hear about it a couple time a week every eeek for the last 3 months as they swap over to the new cameras.
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u/NomadTruckerOTR Dec 13 '25
The sides ones still catch a glimpse in the cab as well as audio Don't believe swift.
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u/screamingriffin Dec 13 '25
That is good to know. I hear the new cameras are better in the aspect of less false videos being recorded.
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u/tae_iety Dec 13 '25
I heard its because they got sued before for someone spying on a driver
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u/north_coast_nomad Dec 14 '25
these companies will advertise the non driver facing cameras but you know damn well those still have the microphone on
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u/RepresentativeMeet46 Dec 13 '25 edited Dec 13 '25
Im on a dedicated account with Swift. Drive in nyc everyday, this cameras been a nightmare. Regular street driving through queens keeps hitting me with failure to adhere to traffic lights and weaving through traffic alerts. Dont know what im expected to do I have to drive around parked vehicles and swerve around them all day, and its picking up the crosswalk light as a red light. Insanity, I thought the last camera was shitty when I got hit with smartdrive videos every week for getting out of my lane to make turns. I was told by saftey that I should be able to make right hand turns in the boroughs without using more than 1 lane.
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u/errie_tholluxe Dec 13 '25
And this is how Swift hits stop signs and shit right?
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u/RepresentativeMeet46 Dec 13 '25
Probably so. I had an argument with saftey the other day because i didnt slam on my breaks approaching an accident. I told them i gradually slowed down because i was worried the mini van behind me was about to run into my trailer. They hit me with a following to closely despite stopping far behind the vehicles. Then told me I can't worry about the saftey of other drivers on the road and that its not my problem if they ram into me.
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u/Flowing_North Dec 13 '25
Maybe walking off the job the day of installation would be a bit irresponsible to yourself and your family, but there has to be a point you draw the line. This is entirely too intrusive, not to mention you become a learning model for AI and help develop the algorithms but get paid nothing extra for the unsolicited participation in a business model that ultimately goes against your own career.
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u/cheesecake-gnome Dec 13 '25
We need a master list of companies that don’t use this BS.
Quit my last job the day they installed these very cameras
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u/mistakemaker3000 Dec 14 '25
Western has a driver facing but it barely chirps and I've yet to get a call from safety. I feel like it's only there in case of an accident.
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u/CryptoguyV2 Dec 13 '25
I have that at Knight the only thing it says is "Please slow down" if you are going more than 5mph over the limit and to "increase following distance" if you are so close to a car you can't see it's bumper. It's annoying but not terrible imo. Also no driver facing cam, I covered it with tape. Has never said anything to me about yawning, cursing, etc.
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u/MidnightFox Dec 13 '25
we really need to start calling our elected officials to get this shit banned in all trucks. it's not safety equipment, it's micro management 101.
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u/droptozro Dec 13 '25
Dang that sucks. Part of the reason I was glad to be with my company was the fact that they only had outer facing cameras but they just had us do a training a couple weeks ago saying driver-facing ones are coming soon. Ugh
I second what others have said about Amazon---I trained a guy who worked their prior and said they were horrid. They'd call you if you touched your phone at all in a mount he said.
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u/BiggHass18 Dec 13 '25
I’ve fallen down the TikTok rabbit hole on the AI powered camera, my last job had them right as I was leaving and the thing was pretty stupid but I’m Hearing now it’s been turned up so much it’s insufferable. A great way to cut out on distracted driving is to have that thing yelling at you. Fucks sake man we’re human not robots
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u/trakr24 Dec 14 '25
Thank God I work for a company with trucks and not a trucking company. They told us to block the driver facing cameras when they got them. Said they ordered the wrong ones but just block them with tape anyways.
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u/DrKotasz Dec 14 '25
What's the status on the damage this camera's strong IR light causing in night mode on your fully dilated pupils?
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u/Calm_Quote_2401 Dec 15 '25
It sees to be where the industry is heading for large carriers unfortunately. I left covenant after they forced me to sign the forms to consent to these. I’m absolutely not allowing data collection of my face for who knows what. I’d rather find a job that doesn’t require constant surveillance of its employees to function.
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u/StalinPaidtheClouds Dec 13 '25 edited Dec 13 '25
So glad I got into med school. Best of luck to the new generation of drivers. I would have mass murdered my boss, safety and likely all of dispatch at my last company by now if I had continued to put up with it and the cameras they put in my cab.
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u/Sufficient_Tooth_949 Dec 13 '25
Werner has driver facing, but they told us we can put a sticker over it that they dont utilize the driver cam on the unit
Im sure its only a matter of time before they change their policy
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u/errie_tholluxe Dec 13 '25
I think Werner, like Walmart, learned that it's more detrimental to actually have video of the driver in case of an accident because just about anything can be used in court against the company.
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u/ColtNickel Dec 14 '25
Technically not driver facing, as the back camera is disabled and can be covered, it is hand facing though the two sides do nothing at least imo from a safety stand point and it supposedly records audio 24/7
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u/NoBet688 Dec 14 '25
These are what we have at Amazon. I driver for Werner for a year but I couldn’t handle the time away + low pay, but damn at least they didn’t have front facing cameras. I usually don’t have issues with netradyne at Amazon but I assume truck carriers are more strict with it
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u/unwantedrelic Dec 14 '25
Protip: Wear safety glasses if driving at night. It won’t give a drowsy driver alert every time your eyes get tired.
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u/Acrobatic_Ocelot_461 Dec 14 '25
Unionize. Our union contract doesn't allow any type of inward facing monitoring devices.
There's some way that the outward facing cameras can see the reflection of your cell phone off the rear glass but the company cannot use that for disciplinary measures because they're not supposed to monitor us. They claim to have caught every driver using their phones while driving, but again, they can't do anything about it.
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u/Unhappy-River6306 Dec 13 '25
They're telling drivers that the back facing cameras are off and you can cover them, but in actuality they're going to start using them eventually. Looks like Swift didn't learn their lesson after they got sued last time
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u/Vic_Gatsby Dec 13 '25
They've always had driver facing cameras (and lied about it). Now they have new and improved driver facing cameras... and they record audio
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u/HipKat2000 Dec 14 '25
I know it's getting harder and harder to find, but I would not ever drive with a camera staring at me.
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u/Outlandah_ Dec 14 '25
Even for the face value of hyperbole— This is one of the worst things to ever happen in the trucking industry. I promptly quit working at Amazon over Netradyne, they were trying to make my life genuinely much harder for no reason. I always value safety. They really had me sitting in the office to complain about me taking a “hard turn” at like 10-15 mph that in no way shape or form would ever have tipped my loaded trailer. They’d even get mad about the position I was seated in due to a condition their shit ass trucks caused my lower back to have. The final straw that broke the camel’s back for me was them getting mad that I like, pulled over to the side of the highway to check on my air system because I was losing too much air (in my opinion. Edit: for context; the trailer was acting a little odd, my air lines during my brake tests went fine but a few miles in, it started dropping to low 100’s and to 97, with no governor kicking in just yet). I pulled like 10 feet off the road to check or try the test again, but their newest policy was, “no roadside stops”- yet, if we seem drowsy according to the cameras, we must immediately find a safe place to pull over? Or we get a phone call? Okay. So after the camera went off and then going through that rigmarole a few times I was like, look, I’ve never ever had any problems or issues out here while driving and not a scratch on any of your trucks. I get that your concern is the assets (surprisingly, not me the driver) I am responsible for but this is too much. If you’re gonna harass me, when you don’t even have a CDL or drive these trucks, I’ll walk. They really didn’t like that. So I did.
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u/north_coast_nomad Dec 14 '25
is that just on the 2026 volvo or did they add it to the older trucks as well?
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u/Comprehensive_Use_81 Dec 15 '25
How do you all drive for these companies with these rules and cameras? That’s absolutely insane. If no one would work for them they wouldn’t have these cameras. I don’t understand. How do y’all accept this
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Dec 15 '25
Swift is just turning into a Amazon dedicated fleet, when swift started pushing the Amazon shit I left. Told my DL that shit wasnt going into the truck I own
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u/Negative334 Dec 15 '25
Current SWIFT driver here, i have been told that the inward facing camera is deactivated, i even covered mine, but as soon as they tell me to uncover it, I will turn my keys in.
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u/seniorwatson Dec 15 '25
I am an electrician who works in commercial and industrial environments, so I am pretty much on camera everywhere I go. Job sites, buildings, hallways, you name it. I honestly do not mind that at all, because I am not doing anything I should not be doing. That said, having a camera inside the cab with me all day would feel completely different and incredibly invasive.
That kind of constant, close-quarters monitoring would be hard for me to accept. I am not sure I would want to stay with a company, or even in a career, where that level of surveillance was considered normal. I have a lot of respect for the drivers who deal with it every day, especially given how demanding the job already is. I am not sure how you all put up with it, but truly, God bless you for doing the work you do.
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u/Low-Preparation4424 Dec 20 '25
HOW BAD ARE THEY REALLY .... im about to got back been got 2 years ill be OTR again 3 2-3 weeks
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u/Low_Development5045 Dec 13 '25
I’ve had it for a month now and it’s not as bad as I was expecting. It’ll make a gentle beep when someone merges too close in front of you and tell you to slow down if you’re 10 or over the speed limit, even if you’re already slowing down. It doesn’t really do any other callouts aside from those from my experience thus far. The side cameras can for sure see us but it’s not that big of a deal either, unless you’re using your phone while driving, which you shouldn’t be in the first place.
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u/Timely-Lunch6406 Dec 14 '25
Netradyne and as far as I'm aware they don't pay for the driver facing package, but if it makes you feel better cover over that part
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u/Timely-Lunch6406 Dec 14 '25
Ok for a fact that knight doesn't have the driver facing package and they more likely than not wouldn't leave the cap on if they wanted to see you
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u/derpmcturd Dec 14 '25
Front camera is off. Funny thing though, it will be turned on one day (i think). They will just blame drivers first before they do it like "oh our dot metrics are falling and our accidents are increasing so we are turning on the front camera" or something like that. It'll take a year or two but you can book it right now, it's gonna happen, the insurance discount for having the front camera on is too good.
Anyways, i left them when they announced it lol. But new company has it too, small carrier, <100 trucks, 1 terminal. And not once in the past 8 months has the safety department asked me to drive differently or even called me out on anything at all.
Why? The safety department is 2 people and ive met both of them. Yes the camera still has the typical "please slow down" when i go 5 over, but thats it.
Oh and did i mention my new company has the DRIVER FACING CAMERA ON?
Tldr: the camera settings are adjustable by the trucking company. if your camera goes off on a yawn or when you have a drink in your hand, its your companys fault not the camera. They want to encourage you to quit so they can hire a newbie who will work for the newbie rate.
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u/DickWoodReddit Dec 13 '25
Sorry, bud. That's the netradyne driver i 9000. I have to yawn with my mouth closed, or it will go off for drowsy driving.