We are now well used to having cameras for transgressor identification inside our vehicles, but if you are a commercial vehicle operator, you may need to cover many more parts of your vehicle. With rising crime rates having an array of cameras around your vehicle makes far more sense, and may save your load as well as your life.

As our roads get busier, the risk of having an accident rise considerably and the need to protect yourself against the worst habits of other drivers increasingly important. Of course, you should always be vigilant while you are driving – driving without due care and attention is a crime – this is an area where technology can help us.

While there have been huge developments in proximity sensors, driven by the growing developments in autonomous vehicles, there is still little better than in-vehicle cameras for either warning a driver or gathering evidence. Bad driving can sometimes be so bad that it stands out and a good piece of video can be your saviour in court – as well as potentially netting you £250 from some TV shows! And camera technology is of such good resolution that identification of transgressors and vehicle details is very easy and now almost completely unambiguous. They have become low-cost, reliable resources that can help keep us all safe.

There is a huge selection of camera systems available for the private vehicle owner, with products ranging from £20 upwards, but are these good enough for commercial vehicle operators? Generally, if you are driving a private car, your concerns are what is happening in front of you, and that is the area that is covered by a camera. You are usually looking out for drivers either in front of you or approaching you and making a recording of their driving and are less concerned about what is going on around your vehicle, but the game changes when you are a commercial driver.

Private vehicle owners are always being told to keep valuable goods out of eyesight, but the game changes when you have a van or lorry emblazoned with your company name and details, and usually implying that there are goods on board. If you see a major retailer’s lorry, the chances are that it is packed with goods as it is poor economic sense to have empty vehicles on the road. And that makes these vehicles obvious targets for thieves. But this is, once again, an area where cameras can come in handy, and not just to record the theft occurring.

Modern commercial vehicle camera systems do far more than just record what is going on in front and can be set up all around as a connected system that can encompass all parts of a van or lorry. These interconnected systems offer a fully immersive view of the vehicle and can be used to pinpoint anyone's intent on breaking into it. Given the very high resolution of these systems, gathering evidence is easy, but these camera systems can go much further than that. Advances in motion tracking and interrupted views offer the potential to raise alerts when there is a consistent movement within the cameras field of view and give the owner the chance of preventing a theft long before it has happened.

The all-weather camera can now be installed at strategic points on your commercial vehicles and are sufficiently discrete so that they don’t draw the attention of the thief. This means that despite the written warning on the vehicle that it has such camera systems, the thief doesn’t target this before they start to break into it. This will not only gather evidence but will also alert either the owner or the authorities to the crime taking place, significantly improving the chances of catching them before any stock has been taken.

Commercial vehicle camera systems are now an essential part of your fleet and can help you in all manner of ways. They are so useful, that not fitting them should be a crime in itself!