Navigating B.C.’s historic dash cam mandate: What fleets need to know

Road safety on Canadian highways just took a meaningful step forward. This week, British Columbia passed legislation that will make it the first jurisdiction in Canada to require forward-facing dash cameras on commercial vehicles, a significant signal of where Canadian road safety policy is heading.

For professional drivers, the stakes are personal. When a collision occurs, objective footage can be the difference between a swift, fair resolution and months of uncertainty—and right now, that footage isn't always there.

The regulatory framework is still taking shape, but the intent is clear. Here is what fleets across Canada need to know.

What the bill proposes

The bill has passed the legislature and now awaits royal assent—the formal signing by B.C.'s lieutenant-governor that makes it law. As passed, it applies to commercial vehicles operating in B.C., with specific hardware requirements and implementation details will be confirmed through the regulatory process that follows. 

Built to protect drivers

Professional drivers carry significant responsibility on B.C.'s highways, and the data tells an important story about what happens when something goes wrong. According to the BC Trucking Association, in 75 to 80 percent of collisions involving a commercial vehicle, the commercial driver is not at fault. Yet without objective footage, establishing that can take months. An outward-facing camera provides time-stamped footage that speeds up investigations and protects the drivers at the centre of them.

It's a lesson the industry has already started drawing on its own. Three-quarters of BCTA members are already running this technology, a sign that the value of dash cameras has been recognized well ahead of any regulatory requirement.

What forward-thinking fleets are already doing

The Canadian ELD mandate offers a useful reference point. When electronic logging became mandatory, the requirement was centred on hours of service. But the fleets that benefitted most used it as a catalyst to modernize more broadly, investing in telematics for utilization, routing, and fuel efficiency. 

B.C.'s dash cam bill presents a similar opportunity: regardless of when regulations are finalized, building a strong video safety program now positions your fleet ahead of the curve, and, more importantly, better protects your drivers today.

Accord Transportation is a strong example. The family-owned Surrey, B.C. carrier—which operates 120+ trucks and 400+ trailers across North America—used to rely on SD-card cameras that made footage retrieval slow and unreliable. In serious accidents, authorities sometimes confiscated the cards entirely, leaving the team with no record of the incident. After switching to Samsara AI Dash Cams, COO Sandy Burt describes the technology as "invaluable from a legal standpoint,” helping the team quickly determine fault and present clear evidence to insurers, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in litigation costs.

For fleets thinking about where to start, the main consideration is whether a front-facing camera alone meets your needs, or whether a dual-facing option makes sense for your program. Samsara's Front-Facing AI Dash Cam records the road ahead continuously and provides real-time alerts for road-based hazards such as tailgating, forward collisions, and lane departure. 

The Dual-Facing AI Dash Cam adds a driver-facing lens, enabling additional detections including drowsiness, distracted driving, and mobile phone use—useful for fleets that want to support more targeted driver coaching alongside compliance. Both capture up to 2K front-facing footage, upload automatically to the cloud, alert you if a camera is misaligned or obstructed, and install in under 15 minutes.

Getting your team on board

Strong leadership and a transparent approach make the difference in a successful camera rollout. When drivers have clear, honest answers about what is recorded, who has access to it, and why the change is happening, the transition tends to go smoothly.

Connecting the "why" back to the data also makes a difference. When drivers see cameras as a tool for their protection—on the road and when something goes wrong—rather than a means of monitoring them, the conversation tends to shift quickly.

For practical guidance on navigating these discussions, Samsara's webinar Tried and True Tips for Getting Driver Buy-In on Dash Cams covers what has worked for fleets that have already been through it.

The intent is clear. Video evidence is becoming a fundamental part of safe commercial vehicle operations in Canada. The fleets best positioned for what comes next are those already building that capability—not waiting for a deadline to act.

Talk to our team about getting ahead of the compliance deadlines, or run the numbers with our Safety ROI Calculator.