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)