MobileMule AI dashcam attempts to address in-cab privacy concerns, deliver feedback to driver

Overdrive Executive Editor Alex Lockie walked through a few of the features of Safe Fleet company Rear View Safety's MobileMule AI dashcam at the 2023 Mid America Trucking Show. The cam is a road and driver-facing, AI-powered system.

“Some of the largest fleets in the country, like Amazon, invested $200 million into this technology, and for good reason,” said one rep during the presentation. “There’s a lot of liability in these vehicles that are capable of doing a lot of damage, so they’re investing into exonerating drivers, which often leads to insurance rate drops.”

MobileMule’s dashcam isn’t just a camera, either. It uses AI to key into exactly what the driver is doing, and what makes them human. In this demo of the tech presented to Overdrive, the AI quickly recognized Lockie’s face and hands. Look away from the road for too long, and a voice chastises you to “look at the road.”

The cam's chronicling of distraction events, reps said, helps fleets a fleet manager or owner “understand who needs coaching and who needs rewarding” among operators. Yet for owner-ops and small fleets who value their drivers’ independence, however, that’s sometimes not translating, said MobileMule reps. “Especially smaller fleets or unionized fleets, we’re not seeing them pick it up,” the MobileMule rep said of the dual road- and driver-facing cameras. He pinned it on “privacy and cost,” saying “a lot of drivers don’t love the idea of having their face forever enclosed on a video file on someone’s desktop that they don’t know,” and citing “a lot of pushback and privacy arguments” from drivers.

MobileMule attempts to address these concerns with .... AI. This camera is easily configured only to film a driver when they’re driving, skipping those private moments “at home” in the sleeper or elsewhere in-cab. And can actively use AI to blur driver's face and features, anonymizing any video that's stored as a result for parties outside fleet leadership or parties in a lawsuit, the company said.

According to the rep, this “takes privacy completely out of it while maintaining the ability to critique their functional driving.”

This video appears with the Trucking's State of Surveillance special reports covering various monitoring/tracking technologies: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15541635

Full results of the State of Surveillance survey of Overdrive's owner-operator readers: https://www.overdriveonline.com/home/document/15541779/state-of-surveillance

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