AI-powered dashcam increased garbage truck fleet safety against raccoon

Earlier this year, Uribe Refuse, which serves Lincoln, Nebraska, and the surrounding region’s waste needs, decided to equip all 63 of its trucks with Motive DC-54 NA AI dual-facing dashcams. They’ve never had any “devastating” accidents, according to Nick Crow, VP at Uribe Refuse, but cars and mailboxes sometimes get clipped, leading the fleet to tighten up its driver safety strategy, as well as to visually document events for liability reasons.

There was a little resistance at first, with some drivers believing the cams were there to pick up on driver conversations, Crow said.

Casey Mitchell, Uribe’s director of commercial operations, added most drivers are used to them at this point, with the company now offering cash bonuses for safe driving, though “some still try to use the visor to cover up the views.”

But when an ordinary shift on a typical Nebraska summer day turned violent, the value of inward-facing dashcams became readily apparent to at least one Uribe driver.

Garbage truck driver Quintion Knox earned his 15 minutes of internet fame for a two-second brawl with a racoon in his cab.

According to the Motive footage—which has since gone viral—a masked bandit with intentions unknown tried to break into Quintion Knox's cab en route.

It was two hours into Knox's shift, and he was settling in for a long day. Then suddenly, down from the cab roof crawled a feisty raccoon, attempting to enter through the open driver's side window. The jump scare made Knox recoil for a second or two and he took his hand instinctively off the wheel. Whether or not this raccoon was itching for a fight, Knox wasn’t sure.

“I hoped it didn't jump on me and scratch my face,” he recalled to Fleet Maintenance.

He collected himself and landed a solid slap to the raccoon’s torso, quickly following up with a grazing blow to loosen the pest’s grip on the door. It tumbled to the road below, hopefully humbled but not seriously injured. (The raccoon was not available for comment at time of publishing.)

Knox regained control of the vehicle, which did appear to swerve a little, according to Crow. The Motive system would alert Mitchell, who handles the fleet's safety, to frequent lane departures, but not for an intermittent diversion. However, in the case of harsh braking or, worse, a collision, he'd get a report and Knox would have some convincing to do.

Knox agreed at least in this instance he was happy to have the dash cam onboard to prove what had happened. He did immediately report the fight with the masked attacker on the radio immediately after.

Crow didn’t need a dashcam alert, as the laughing employee at the front desk listening to Knox’s excited recounting of the event was enough to get his attention. Mitchell, who was also listening, was able to quickly pull up the video, much to the enjoyment of Knox’s coworkers and the internet at large.

But what if during this scuffle Knox crashed into a parked car or worse?

“Absolutely, no one would have believed me,” Knox said.

Luckily, the video was proof enough.

Watch below:

Taking out the trash

While the folks at Uribe can laugh at the video, which has amassed 5.5 million views on Facebook alone, if that marauding raccoon had caused an accident, the company could be facing a much more serious and costly situation, especially in today’s litigation-happy environment.

This event was a case of "you have to see it to believe it," though some human opportunists exploit the system by staging accidents that if a claims adjuster or jury doesn't see, they might actually believe.

The industry-wide increase in fraud and frivolous personal injury lawsuits was a big topic of conversation at a conference Crow attended last Fall.

“We’re a target,” he said of the trucking industry at large.

He cited the infamous viral video on the Belt Parkway in Queens, New York, where the driver of a sedan quickly changed lanes and slammed on the brakes. The alert driver behind this car was quick enough to also brake and avoid a collision. The sedan then violently reversed into the car anyway, who had been cut off. Four pieces of human garbage poured out of the sedan, feigning injury to cash in on an insurance claim. Luckily, the vehicle they hit had a dashcam, ending the criminal charade.

The man allegedly behind the scam was arrested and charged with staging the accident and other crimes shortly after. And he got a second helping of just desserts as the car used in the crime was vandalized by some of New York’s finest vigilantes (Fleet Maintenance does not officially condone vigilante justice).

In any event, Crow was certainly moved enough to start vetting dashcam providers. Having video proof exonerates drivers, or at least helps the fleet understand what actually happened, he reasoned.

Uribe ultimately settled on Motive, and the fleet began installing the dashcams in late winter/early spring of this year.

The fleet soon found far more benefits than just litigation prevention. Alerts detected by the system, from harsh accelerating or braking on the road-facing side, to distracted or drowsy driving on the inside, become data points that help a company remain proactive to possible weak points in the safety program. And the videos of accidents and near-misses that could have been avoided become teachable moments that can be shared among the team.

“Allowing drivers to see themselves and their teammates in different situations really opens their eyes to how they may or may not react, or how they would do something differently,” Crow said. “It can really open up discussions on being safer and more efficient amongst the team.”

Uribe Refuse has adopted Motive's dual-facing AI dashcams on all 63 of its trucks, and is in the process of adding Motive's Omni cams for 360-degree video coverage.

And if any driver still wants to obscure the inward cam for some reason, they should know that a fleet can set up an alert for that, too. And obviously, serious infractions lead to serious consequences.

"There was already an instance where the system alerted us to a driver who wasn’t paying attention," Crow noted. "Due to this unsafe behavior and actions, that employee is no longer with the company."

Crow noted this unsafe behavior “could have caused something major” if left unchecked.

On the positive side, safe driving can be quantified and rewarded, as Uribe's bonus program proves. Every quarter a driver does not have a safety issue, they are awarded extra money in their paycheck. It was implemented July 1, with the fleet setting parameters and customizing the solution in the previous quarter.

Because waste pickup is vastly different than over-the-road trucking, some things didn’t make sense.

The program has been successful enough that Uribe is now in the process of adding Motive’s Omni cams to monitor the back and sides of the truck bodies. Paired with the dual-facing dashcam, the trucks will have 360-degree coverage. So if that raccoon is looking for a rematch, the fleet will be prepared.

And that’s the important thing that dash cams provide for Crow’s fleet: being prepared for anything that can happen on the road, whether it’s a feisty trash panda, scummy scammers, or a driver not fit for the job.

“I've been here for 26 years, so I'm aware that [stuff] happens,” Crow concluded. “I've had my incidents—I haven't had a raccoon crawl in the cab with me, but I've seen a lot, and literally every day is something new, crazy, scary, exciting, fun. It's nuts being out in the garbage industry and I'm sure every industry has things like that.”