Uber is coming for your trucking jobs

https://amp.businessinsider.com/uber-is-turning-into-a-different-company-that-you-thought-it-was-2016-8

Read it down near the bottom of this article. They are supposedly even trying to retrofit older rigs, not just
new rigs with self-driving abilities. Uber is an unethical company, not that most OTR companies are much
better, but I have always said that if they could replace truckers with robots, they would do so. I was correct.

 

I must disagree, SBJ. I think OTR will be infested first since the auto-shift was invented and used mostly by the OTR outfits. They will start out with drivers behind the wheel, but that's just a test bed idea.

After that, they will have a lead rig with a driver, and the following rigs will have no drivers at all. As for backing, the warehouses/barns will just have hostlers back the trailers into the docks, for the time being. Backing into a recessed dock during P&D work will still be a long time coming to automation, I agree with that much, as the consignees will not have hostlers there to do so.

Automation is THE coming thing, and y'all best believe that. Robots and computers dont need to be paid, take time off, go on strike or get sick. I just ordered two Subway sandwiches at the kiosk next to the building, by pressing a few touchscreen buttons and entering my credit card in the slot.

No teller there at all, just people putting the sandwiches together inside and handing them to me.

That's our future, and not just for people who happen to drive trucks for a living. Sure am glad I will be retired in a couple of years. Trucking aint nothing like it used to be, and local pickup & delivery drivers will be needed soon enough, to do what cannot be done by robotics, until they invent a humanoid robot that can do so. That is what will take time, not self-driving OTR rigs.

Better hone up on your people skills drivers, cause OTR is dying out, unless you like working for way less $$$ then you currently make. Sorry if the facts hurt, just being honest here, that's all.

Too, already LOTS of freight is going cross-country on inter-modal trains and has been for quite a long time.

So you younger drivers need to learn to drive local/delivery routes, hosteling trailers around the yard, or pull short hauls from your barns out to the R/R inter-modal yards and then back again.

 

As do I. The rigs these days are so easy and nice to drive, compared to the rigs we used to
drive back in my youth, its absolutely unbelievable. COE was popular back then, which I never liked. Owner-Operators tended to buy the "Classic" models then, not Cab Over Engine rigs.

I cant believe how darn NICE it it to drive a truck with hydraulic power-steering, air-conditioning, blue-tooth/CD/MP3 radios, power mirrors and windows and all the other things that new drivers take for granted these days. Back then if you had air-powered seats and air-assisted power steering, you thought you were pretty lucky.

Hell, now its like driving a very large modern day pickup-truck to me, except for the multi-speed manual transmissions, which I love over the auto-shift transmissions. Those POS, I dont like whatsoever. Lets face it: it took some time for all of us to learn to properly shift a non-synchronized transmission. Automatics are not only slow to shift, but for we older drivers, they just dont cut it and they never will, period.

I know I will NOT like seeing driver-less rigs in the near future, despite what information I have posted here. At least I feel I need to warn the younger drivers of what is coming down the road.

I am also not keen on Uber at all. They are as cutthroat as a bunch of pirates, but they are not the only outfit that is looking to put driver-less rigs (and cars) on the road either. Lots of OTR outfits are doing the same thing.

And many stores are already cutting staff using self-checkout lanes and kiosks. This does not bode well for people who need to work, at all. You have to wonder how people who are unemployed due to automation/robotics will be able to pay their bills and taxes. Or will they?

I see idle hands doing some real dirty work to make a buck, if this trend continues, and I dont see how it can be stopped, whatsoever.