Hit the Deer!
An AI camera penalized a driver for avoiding a deer, proving that algorithmic safety scores teach drivers to game a broken system.
Back in 2023, I was racing towards “Driver of the Year” for our distribution center. It was the final quarter, and I was way ahead. There was no way I was going to lose, that title was mine, or so I thought.
One early morning, I was on my way to the first stop of the day, a 45-minute drive. It was dark and misty, headlights glaring off the road. I entered a two-lane, divided highway, and accelerated to 65 mph. Suddenly, a deer jumped in front of my truck. I slammed the brakes, held my lane, and narrowly avoided the collision. Heart racing, I looked at my helper: “that was close!” But I didn’t think much of it. It was the Midwest after all; deer strikes happened all the time.
What I didn’t think of at that moment was the AI tattletale. Our trucks were all equipped with Samsara camera systems. They track everything we do. Yawning? “TAKE A BREAK!” Reaching for the radio? “DISTRACTED! DISTRACTED!” It's marketed as driver coaching, but in my opinion, it’s nothing other than aggravating. In addition to the unwelcome digital assistant, the camera is also configured to report speeding, harsh braking, and collisions.
A couple months later, the final results for the year came in. Somehow I had dropped to fourth place, and I was not happy about it. I knew there was no way that could have happened. Nothing had changed. There were no Samsara alerts, no collisions, nothing that should have knocked me down the list. I called my boss, John, demanding to know what happened. John looked into it and reported back that I had a speeding event. A speeding event? How? Where? John said the camera flagged me when I avoided the deer. We both agreed it was a false flag. I never sped, the highway was zoned for 65 mph, and the alert was an error. Everything turned out fine in the end. John made it right, and I got my title.
But what that experience really did, was question how I drive. “Next time I should just run the deer over.” After all, a deer is too small to register a collision, so I never would have been tagged for speeding. Now that’s some backwards logic! But that’s often the result of relying on AI cameras to improve driver behaviors. Logic gets thrown out the window as drivers think of creative ways to beat the algorithm.