Swift, the third largest commercial carrier in the United States, has announced that it will be outfitting all 6,000+ company vehicles with driver-facing cameras.

Lytx DriveCams are the systems Swift has decided to install. They work by using both forward-facing and driver-facing cameras to record constantly. Then, when the system detects a “safety critical event” such as a hard stop or an accident, it stores the 10 seconds of footage gathered before and the 10 seconds after that event occurred.





While Swift stresses that the cameras will not be used to watch or monitor truck drivers in real time, many drivers have voiced concern in the past about a camera that is constantly recording – even if it doesn’t store that data unless there’s a “safety critical event.”

In their announcement video sent to drivers, the president and COO of Swift, Richard Stocking, claimed that the cameras would be used as an “in-cab coach,” to help correct bad habits and make drivers safer. In the event that an accident does occur, the footage from the system can be used to help exonerate drivers of blame when the crash is not their fault.

Stocking says that Swift’s trucks will start being outfitted with the system next month, but that they won’t be present in every truck until the end of next year.

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Source: overdrive, lytx