Self driving trucks and our future

Well guess my new kenworth will have a " driver " option , lol seriously yes when technology advances those who delay too long in embracing it will usually eventually be along side the road watching it pass them by. Pun intended

 

All you have to do is look at some of the places we load/unload at. Some are full of automated machines. Just the forklift operater is a human.
Just driving this 2013 Peterbuilt with the Bendix radar system, I can see the direction they are headed. With the cruise control on, the truck will slow itself if the car in front slows or I come up on a slower vechile. An automated truck would only have to go 40 mph to out distance what an OTR driver can do now.
i think the transformation period will be lengthy though. Big companies on major routes first, then spreading over the course of years....

 

I'm sorry, I don't buy it. Until all vehicles are automated, it won't work, except in extremely limited situations. 4-wheelers and trucks can't co-exist now, can you imagine what a mess it would be with driverless trucks? And this Bendix radar system is a slap in the face.( to an old trucker) If anything, it will give an inattentive driver even more of a false sense of security. "Oh, don't worry, the truck will stop itself". What ever happened to paying attention? TERRIBLE!

 

I don't know..... the future is here and I don't like it. From the article below, you get a driver driving the lead truck and the rest daisy chain to the one in front, leaving those drivers in the trailing trucks to 'not drive'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28834774

 

Pilots have been redundant for quite a while,yet we still have two in every ####pit.
Why?
People will refuse to board a remote control aircraft,if we refuse to drive on the same road with a drone semi it won't happen - otherwise it will .
sooner not later

 

Imagine if Tracy Morgan had been seriously hurt in an accident with a robotic truck. Do you think in a case like that, and it will happen, that the news media would jump all over the horrifying computerized trucks? Computers aren't infallible. However, humans are more fallible, and the difference in driving ability between a human and a computer will narrow. It may be that computer controlled trucks will be safer than humans, even on a road populated with almost all vehicles driven by humans.

However, here's some scenarios that would give companies fits that go with computerized trucks:

1. Hijackings or load theft - all it would take to bring a truck to a complete stop on the highway will be for thieves to box in the truck and slow it to a stop. There's no human aboard to confront. Stop the truck, open the doors, get the freight. The truck may send an automated message to bring the police and record the event, but by then the thieves are long gone.

2. Jamming - what happens if for any reason the sensors or "eyes" of the truck get blinded? Does the truck come to a complete stop on an interstate in the lane because it can't see the edge of the road?

3. Virus - you think having your personal computer taken over remotely without your knowledge is scary? Consider a nation with heavy trucks on the highway that are taken over by someone with bad intentions. HazMat load? Tom Clancy, where are you?...

 

[QUOTE="semi" retired;4198600]I'm sorry, I don't buy it. Until all vehicles are automated, it won't work, except in extremely limited situations. [/QUOTE]It already is working. This technology is designed from the ground up to work with on real world roads right along side non-automated vehicles and people and stray dogs and kids on bikes and asteroids falling from the sky and whatever else happens on the roads every day of the week. The cars currently being tested work right along side other cars and trucks and deal perfectly well with all real world situations. Construction zones, other vehicle accidents, slippery roads, the whole bit. Yep they're only doing it with cars now. But the core technology can and will be EASILY adapted to the unique handling requirements of trucks.

I know we as drivers like to think that our skills are so advanced that no machine could ever do what we do behind the wheel as well as we do it. But the technology is already built and working. Getting it actually into the field will take time both because the prototype units being tested now will need to make the leap over to actual reliable production models and because it will take a while for the public to get comfortable with the idea. But both of things are going to happen sooner rather than later IMO.

 

That's just it. Tracy Morgan would never have happened with a robotic truck because robotic trucks won't ever fall asleep at the wheel.

 

And the police go right to where the thieves are because the freight they stole has tracking beacons encased right in with the freight itself. That technology already exists and is already used on certain high value loads.

Don't know, but I'm quite sure the engineers designing the systems have thought of it and have a solution in place that protects the general public from danger.

Because the trucks won't have drivers, the trucks won't surf the net for porn or spend time on bogus online gambling sites or open email attachments from unknown sources or do any of the other bone headed things people to get their machines infected with malicious software. Consider this, every airliner flying over your head every day relies on software to stay in the air. Not one has ever crashed or malfunctioned in any way due to a malicious software infection. Why is that? Its because Tom Clancy writes fiction and we live in reality and one is not the same as the other.

 

Excellent observation!