USA/Solutions/By vehicle/Class 8 tractor-trailers
Class 8 tractor-trailers
A camera that failed last Tuesday can’t help you today. MANTIS checks every camera on every truck each day and flags a fault the morning it happens. So when a car cuts across your trailer at 5 a.m., you already know that side was recording.
Predict the risk. Prevent the collision. Prove what happened.
Built for U.S. truckload, LTL and private fleets: day cabs and sleepers pulling dry vans, reefers, flatbeds and tankers.
Camera count, trailer and cargo views, night vision and AI detections depend on configuration. Retrieval time depends on the truck being powered and connected, and on clip length and quality. Assistance supports driver judgment; it does not replace it or guarantee prevention. Images on this page are illustrative and AI generated, pending fleet photography.
Damage, injury and claims surround the trailer
The car that drifts into the trailer on the interstate. The pickup that slides up the inside of a right turn. The yard move that clips a dock post at 3 a.m. A forward-facing camera sees none of it, and the claim still lands on your desk.
01
A car rides in the blind spot beside the trailer for half a mile, then the driver moves over. Afterward it is your driver’s word against theirs, and a forward camera only shows the road ahead. Side cameras show who drifted.
02
A 53-foot trailer cuts across the inside of every right turn, and backing onto a dock means watching both mirrors at once. A spotter helps, but a spotter does not always see both sides. Side and rear views show what was there.
03
Most fleets find out a camera failed on the day they need the clip. A lens knocked sideways, a full drive, a loose connector. MANTIS Health puts it on the daily report, so it gets fixed before it matters.
04
The letter comes after the truck has crossed three states. Footage held on the vehicle and in RECON lets your safety team pull the right minute from every camera, and settle it on the facts.
Sources. 503k and 76% are from the FMCSA 2024 Pocket Guide to Large Truck and Bus Statistics, tables 4-1 and 4-4 (2022 data; large trucks are over 10,000 lb GVWR). 32% and 14% are national estimates from the Large Truck Crash Causation Study sample of fatal and injury crashes from 2001 to 2003 (FMCSA Analysis Brief, July 2007). MANTIS RECON is a collision prevention and evidence system; it does not replace safe driving practices, trained spotters or route planning.
Camera coverage
Lane changes, trailer swing and blind-side access. A typical configuration matches forward, side and rear views to the whole combination, adds a camera inside the trailer where the load is the question, and, if you choose, one in the cab. Every view records continuously and can be pulled through RECON.
Camera positions, counts and AI detections depend on the configuration selected for each tractor and trailer. A Class 8 tractor takes up to eight cameras. Ask us about reefers, flatbeds, tankers and doubles, which need a different layout.
Every camera, checked every day
Predict, Prevent and Prove, tuned to a fleet that runs day and night across state lines.
Predict
Driver risk scoring, built on more than 7 billion driving patterns from 106 countries, flags the drivers and habits most likely to end in a collision, so your safety team spends its time where it changes outcomes. Scores are relative comparisons, not a forecast that a collision will happen.
Prevent
No camera stops a crash on its own. It makes the risk visible. The driver-facing camera alerts to distraction and fatigue in the cab, and real footage gives a manager a specific minute to coach on, not a general talk.
Prove
Time-stamped, multi-angle video settles fault, answers false and staged claims, and defends the driver who did nothing wrong. Pull it remotely and share it with your insurer or your attorney.
Risk scores in RECON examples are shown out of 15 and use demo data. A hard brake may be defensive driving: review video, context and the driver’s account before drawing a conclusion, and never let a score alone decide an employment, underwriting or liability outcome. Video cannot establish injury severity. MANTIS does not guarantee premiums, settlements, admissibility or legal outcomes. Retrieval time depends on power, connectivity, retention, clip length and quality.
Built for the road
A side camera knocked sideways at a dock, a drive that filled up overnight, a connector that worked loose on the interstate. MANTIS Health checks every camera, drive and connection on every truck and reports before the first dispatch, so the truck that goes out is the truck you think it is.
Offline is not proof of camera failure. Monitoring or power alone does not guarantee useful recording or retrievable footage. Uncapped data is subject to fair use policy. Whether a truck with a reported fault is dispatched is a decision under your own safety program.
Concept · demo data40 tractors on the board. One side camera fault raised overnight.
Concept illustration of the MANTIS Health view using fictional demo data. Truck numbers, times and counts are not real fleet data.
Dry van, reefer and tank
Fuel racks before dawn, reefer washouts, and docks where the trailer is the only thing between the driver and the claim.
Drivers and budget holders
Two people have to say yes to cameras on a truckload fleet: the driver, and whoever signs off the spend.
For your drivers
When a car merges into the trailer and the other driver tells their insurer your truck moved over, the video is what stands between your driver and a claim in their name. Every camera on the truck plays back on one timeline.
The driver-facing camera has a privacy mode for when the driver is off duty. Where fleets use one, retention and who can view video are agreed with drivers before the system goes live.
Driver-facing alerts and detections support review and coaching. A score alone should never decide an employment outcome.
For your budget holders
Start with last year’s costs that clear video from every side would have answered: side-swipe and lane-change claims, backing, dock and yard damage, clips missing or a camera down when you needed it, and serious incidents and litigated claims, counting the defense and the downtime.
Then configure your 360° system and request a price to set against that total.
The figures are yours. MANTIS does not guarantee a saving, a premium change or the outcome of any claim.
Hardware, software and support
No capital purchase, no separate data plan, no argument about who owns a failed camera. Buy direct from MANTIS, or through your telematics provider or reseller.
Support
Critical camera faults raise a support case automatically, and first-line checks start before you call. Installation, fault handling and replacement are agreed with your team as part of the package terms.
Connectivity
RECON connects across supported U.S. carriers and uncapped data is included, so a truck parked at the edge of coverage is not a reason to lose video. Uncapped data is subject to fair use policy. Network coverage, roaming, plan availability and retrieval performance vary by region and configuration.
Terms that hold
Adding trucks doesn’t reset the end date or pricing on the ones you already have. RECON integrates with Geotab, so your team works in the telematics platform it already uses. Confirm terms for your fleet in the written quote.
Questions from carriers
If yours is not here, put it in the form and a solutions engineer will answer it directly.
Most fleets run five or six: forward, left side, right side, rear and, optionally, inside the trailer and driver-facing. A Class 8 tractor takes up to eight cameras, set to the vehicle and the trailer. Reefers, flatbeds, tankers and doubles need a different layout.
Yes. A cargo camera on the trailer’s front wall covers the load, the doors and the dock. Whether it suits your trailers, and how it connects to the tractor, is agreed at the installation survey.
Footage is typically pulled from the truck in about 30 seconds, wherever it is, when the truck is powered and connected. Footage is also held on the vehicle, so a claim that arrives weeks later can still be answered within your retention period. Retention depends on configuration.
MANTIS Health reports on every camera, drive and connection on every truck daily, and critical memory faults reach our support team as they happen. An offline camera is not by itself proof that the unit has failed.
Driver-facing cameras are optional and have a privacy mode for off-duty time. Where fleets use them, retention and who can view video are agreed with drivers before the system goes live.
Yes, or direct from MANTIS. RECON integrates with Geotab, and you can buy through the telematics provider or reseller you already work with, or from MANTIS itself. Tell us which platform you use and we will point you to the right route.
Get a fleet risk assessment
Book a 20-minute demo on your own vehicle mix. Tell us about the fleet: tractors, trailer types, yards and the lanes you run. We will build the assessment around your configuration and the telematics platform you already run.