Dash cams in fleets offer motor carriers several advantages. They can be used as a tool to improve driver safety, reduce accident liability, enhance training opportunities, and protect against fraudulent claims, which can provide cost savings and greater operational efficiencies. Conveying these benefits is critical to getting driver buy-in. You want drivers not to view dash cams as an invasion of privacy but as a tool to help protect them and their families from the stress and fallout of an accident.
Promote Transparency, Foster Driver Trust
Therefore, it’s important to have a policy in place to establish driver trust and acceptance of driver cam use. The policy should obtain employee consent for recordings, ensure videos are used exclusively for training, loss prevention, or legal defense, and safeguard footage from unauthorized access.
Additionally, the policy should indicate that recordings will not be stored unless a specific event trigger occurs. Examples of qualifying incidents may include but are not limited to speed limit violations or excessive speed for conditions, following too close or hard braking, lane deviations without the turn indicator engaged, failure to stop at a controlled intersection, damage to a company-owned vehicle, traffic citations, accidents, or complaints of unsafe behavior involving company-owned vehicles.
The written policy should also address biometric data privacy laws, emphasizing the need for written driver consent when dash cams require biometric identifiers such as fingerprints or facial scans. It should make it clear that employees are prohibited from tampering with, disabling, or installing unauthorized dash cams in company-owned vehicles. Also, to alleviate privacy concerns, the policy should state that real-time remote viewing will only occur in emergency situations.
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