this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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[–] wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 124 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (9 children)

Those Solera devices you've got are relatively common automotive IoT fleet trackers. They usually have gps antennas. They talk to the engine and transmission directly over canbus. Then they process that data and report what they see over a cell network. If they see nothing, they report that too with a heartbeat signal and various error codes.

Depending on the model, they sometimes have external cell antennas connected with a mini coaxial cable. Find it and unscrew it all the way, then re-screw it in by only 1 and a half rotations so it'll hang on but barely. Then clip the nearest ziptie so the cable wobbles free. It'll cause the nut on the coax to get a stress fracture in under a year. They will have to replace the gps/cell antenna module and those are like $300 a piece through Samsora. In the meantime you'll get iffy signal responses. Don't let them catch you cutting the zip tie on camera or you WILL lose your job.

Your truck will be in the maintenance shop relatively frequently at the request of whoever reads the reports for repair of that cell module. They won't find anything wrong with it, scratch their butts, then just screw it back down and replace the ziptie.

Unscrew it and clip it again.

[–] Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world 83 points 4 days ago (24 children)

don't let them catch you, you WILL lose your job

Hey director of IT for a trucking company here, i just want to reiterate this part!

Don't fucking do this. Any of this advice. You WILL lose your job and we WILL blacklist you from the industry for this shit. Maybe if you drivers could actually mange your fucking log books and follow the safety regulations we wouldn't need to have ELDs and camera and GPS and fucking canbus monitoring and annual inspections and all of the other """invasive nonsense""" the government requires.

I dont want it either. Its all crazy expensive, annoying to manage, and I have to constantly deal with drivers complaining about it.

Sorry. I'm a little upset with this issue because its a constant issue i have at work. But no there is nothing you can do besides just get another job.

I just want to reiterate it again. Do NOT mess with the equipment your company has in your truck. At best you'll just get fired but I've seen my company respond with legal measures in the past.

[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 80 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Maybe if you drivers could actually mange your fucking log books and follow the safety regulations we wouldn't need to have ELDs and camera and GPS and fucking canbus monitoring

Those companies would deploy this shit anyways even if the logs were perfect. Anything to blame the employee can and will be deployed.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 37 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Those companies would deploy this shit anyways even if the logs were perfect.

I want to say that businesses are famous for spending enormous amounts of money to fix a solved problem sarcastically but I've been working too long to believe it.

Still, so much of the problem isn't with the monitoring but the annoying middle-management response of stack-ranking all the drivers. Rather than just playing your hand, big employers are constantly trying to reshuffle and "optimize" staff in order to squeeze out an extra ounce of profit. And the end result is everyone being immiserated in order to give someone with a marginal fluctuation in performance a raise.

Anything to blame the employee can and will be deployed.

Shit rolls downhill.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 15 points 3 days ago

Same old shit. Companies treat employees like machines and numbers on a spreadsheet and demanding more and more productivity while paying lip service to rules and regs yet knowing that employees will skirt, bend, or break the rules to meet whatever sterile metric the beancounters set within the expected window.

Don’t meet the metric? Get some bad performance reviews. Start referencing the safety rules that slow you down? Not a team player. Get fired for some nebulous problem.

Most of the time it’s ignored, but when something goes wrong the company just blames the employee for failing to follow regs.

Automated system reporting just keeps the costs down by creating a higher turnover of employees.

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[–] AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 75 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Trucking is so funny. There is an adversarial relationship between the drivers and the office, which you can see in this comment.

The industry is trying to solve safety issues caused by the nature of long haul driving and maintenance of profit in logistics by companies that use their services.

Trucking used to be a way a person could provide for their family, remain independent, and feel in control. Now, trucking is an industry where you are trapped in a moving computer designed primarily to reduce the insurance rates of the company that employs them, because their business practices and demands were so dangerous, individuals truckers had to drive more hours, get paid less for those hours, and literally drive themselves, and other motorists around them when they crashed, to death.

Then they blame the truckers as they race to bottom in hiring. Don't even get me started on nafta. Your industry sucks for the employees who are necessary to keep the economy moving.

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[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 3 days ago (2 children)

My dude. How would you like a camera over your shoulder every minute of your workday, recording your every move? What might you do faced with that?

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] thatsTheCatch@lemmy.nz 6 points 3 days ago

Name checks out

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[–] Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I work in an office with cameras ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 6 points 3 days ago

"I'm oppressed so I must also oppress those I have power over"

[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (8 children)

What's their justification for needing them?

I sure hope they don't use the word "team." Because that ain't it.

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[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 39 points 4 days ago (2 children)

The safe way to fight back is through the trucking unions, which don't seem interested in getting rid of this invasive software.

But if every trucker did this they couldn't blacklist them all.

[–] bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 17 points 4 days ago (9 children)

Yeah, this is a problem of pushing compliance to a level above the operator in an area where the perfection demanded by policy relies on traffic behaving perfectly, and drivers never experiencing delays or problems, to operate. The only way this goes away is a scarcity of drivers.

Someone who believes they know how to drive will suggest automated trucks, but the accident lawsuits will probably bankrupt the first companies.

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[–] Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago

Unions aren't interested in pushing back against the invasive software because they know drivers haven't been following the rules.

Basically nobody in the industry wants this. It makes it harder to do our jobs, it's more annoying, and it's crazy expensive. But it's what you gotta do when drivers run 2 or 3 log books.

[–] joel_feila@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Man i have had drivers i work go full on road rage. No really he reached up and tried to tuen off the camera. Im not sure if had a fake button or he jist pressed the wrong on. Bit he the grabbed a gun and got out. This was after pushing a car in the cement baracade.

Its crqzy what some people do in cars

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago (7 children)

Reading this thread is really selling that dream job.
You all keep doing what you're doing and there will be no drivers left to squeeze out and make their life even more miserable.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 days ago

truckgpt will be here soon, unfortunately

That’s the idea. Replace them with driverless vehicles.

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[–] mad_djinn@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago

I’m a little upset with this issue because its a constant issue i have at work.

maybe find a new job where you don't act like completely garbage manager? or work to find a human centric solution rather than... oppressive digital technologies?

I hope you end up with a neurolink in your skull and are constantly monitored for wrongthink.

[–] wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 4 days ago (6 children)

Well the whole bit about backing out the nut is to cause it to fail in a manner that looks more like a maintenance problem and not a driver problem. Even when stuff like that only happens on one cab, it's not enough to point at a singular driver.

And yeah all of that advice comes with the rider that "you may be unemployable" afterwards.

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[–] mad_djinn@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

you drivers could actually mange your fucking log books and follow the safety regulations

you are part of the reason everyone hates management. the overburden of society by technofascists like you will result in many horrible repercussions down the line.

giving nerds any power over workers was a mistake

[–] Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago

Hey so it's actually the federal department of transportation that decides we need super invasive tracking! And they decided that after a ton of accidents directly caused by drivers not paying attention and working crazy hours.

I also don't want to pay or manage this crap but here we are.

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Counterpoint: I would love to not be run over by a truck driver that decided that when redbull stops working a swig of whiskey will help him be awake after skipping the night sleep. You know how I know that I would love to not be in this situation? Because this exact situation happened to me and it sucks, even though I survived.
If anal probes is something that prevents heavy equipment operators from breaking the rules, so be it. I would prefer them not need that also.

Personally I'm very pro-probe. All the probes, all the time.

[–] MonkeyBrawler@lemm.ee 8 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Who tf references a truck driver blacklist?

[–] Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world 15 points 3 days ago

This is gonna blow your mind... But other transportation companies...

[–] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

HR, always.

This is literally 90% of what they're paid to do.

Truck driving companies.....??

[–] zqps@sh.itjust.works 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You know there's plenty of control freaks micromanaging everything underneath them even if it pisses off their best people to the point of quitting.

Especially those 1 or 2 rungs higher up the chain who need to make up problems to solve so they can justify their existence.

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