In exchange for better insurance rates, trucking companies are adding cameras to truck cabs.
Insurance rates for commercial vehicles are on the rise. Estes says they are up 20% in 2 years. Driven by “nuclear judgments” – penalties that sometimes run to hundreds of millions of dollars – insurance companies are seeing payouts exceeding income.
To paraphrase Mr. Micawber in the book David Copperfield: “Premium income $1, expenditure $1.10, result misery.” That misery gets passed to you, the shipper. Cameras, the “big-brother” intrusion, record a few seconds before and after when triggered by “G” forces. This enables a carrier to show what really happened as well as counsel drivers.
Check out this fraud: The driver claims he was rear-ended when, in fact, he swerved in front of the truck. (Just watch the first minute of this video)