Future of Trucking - Automation concern

The scenario you’re posing still applies today. If you cause an accident that is above your insurance coverage—no more business.

Only time will tell if driverless vehicles will be the future. I will hate to be making your comments and 10 years later, we start seeing a large flow of driverless vehicles taking over the long haul routes.

 

Thatd like saying a 5 year old is a safer driver. There not even on the road yet...

 

Let me clarify myself. Driverless vehicles are not allowed on public roads by civilians. However, some states have granted companies the ability to test driverless vehicles on public roads. They’ve been testing them for years now. The stats show driverless vehicles are safer than humans overall. The results are on the web.

 

Yes, but it takes more than one bird to make you be driving blind on one side, I don't trust cameras or radar to see somebody coming up beside the vehicle. I'll believe in their driverless vehicles when they let somebody pick 50 different vehicles to run at various speeds around a track and the engineers will go sit out in the traffic in a lawn chair drinking beer.

 

Wait for the day the jury consists of a bunch of out of work truck drivers in the case vs the autonomous truck. If it happens to be me, I will grant an amount that rivals the national debt.

If you really want to ship long distance goods by less cost there is a WAY more efficient way to do it. It is called rail shipping. It is way less energy intensive, it is safer, you can ship more weight, and you don't need a driver. I don't understand why these huge dollars are being spent to try to eliminate the driver. It would be way better spent developing the railway to a point where it just makes more sense to use the railroad. If we had more lead times on what needs to be ordered and a be a bit more flexible on the delivery time line - I don't see why we couldn't make it happen. Amazon is already very good at predicting what it's customers are going to buy. So good, in fact, they know who is likely to buy what, and they move it to the nearest shipping points - then when you do buy it, they can deliver it in what, 1 hour? The thought of that even being possible would of blown people away not very long ago. They could make a tv show of taking someone from a far corner of the world who doesn't even know how much we have built, who still lives every day hunting and fishing, put them in NYC or LA and just watch. Now that I think about it, look how far humans have come in a relatively short time. We really have built a lot.

The push for commercial vehicles, I am having a difficult time seeing the return on investment. The case where it is involved in an accident is huge. The machine is nowhere near the skill level of humans. I think you will still need a human to do the job for a long time yet. The draw for passenger vehicles is different. The question is, will people choose to buy them? If the statistics show it will reduce crashes and fatalities by 50% (Elon Musk put this rate out there) - would you buy it in the name of safety? If you think your driving skills are higher than 50% of the population, would you be putting yourself at a higher risk? How many folks will admit to being poor drivers and opt for the technology? How many people will actually use the car to drive itself while being productive in another way during the travel time? I bet it won't be many. I think the Tesla where it will follow along in a lane until the driver takes over again is about as much as most people will want, or be comfortable with. I would not be comfortable sitting in a car that I have no control over. It will take a generation or 2 before that becomes "normal" - if ever. Do you think the average American will be comfortable driving beside an 80,000 truck with no human at the wheel? I wonder if the media can sell them that is better than our current perceived image of being a bunch of ex-con, drug addicted rapist, murdering lunatics. You know what I mean.

This idea brings up another question. Why do we use 3,000-7,000 pound machines to move around our 200 pound butts? Usually just 1 of us at a time. The energy to do that is crazy when you think about it. What is a better way? There must be a better way. If you can solve that.... you could be one of the richest people to ever exist. If you don't disappear without a trace...

 

Most of us answering questions in this forum are business people. Why fear driverless vehicles? I’d say, bring it on. This tech should not be viewed as a threat to business owners, but as an opportunity to grow our businesses. We aren’t exactly drivers anymore, and some of you are fleet owners.

Now, drivers, on the other hand, should fear this tech. This might very well reduce truck driving jobs. But isn’t technology already taking over many, many jobs. If you go into a factory today, you will notice lots of machines that are doing jobs people did decades or hundreds of years ago. Technology taking over jobs is inevitable. What we can do is adapt to it, or go out of business.

 

Where did I say I fear the autonomous vehicle?

I said I don't see it coming for a ways off yet, if ever, and gave some reasons as to why. The biggest factors? The technology isn't nearly ready yet. The average human is still superior to the technology. The return on investment is about as clear as mud. When you figure out all 3 of those things, it will be here, whether we like it or not. Getting it approved is another issue.

I am saying I don't see the point in spending the 100s of millions in trying to develop the autonomous commercial truck. I think we'd be further ahead to invest that in rail.

 

Quite honestly, that's the only real sticking point currently. Who gets sued for what. But that's what lawyers are for.

The obvious solution is to change the regs to make it illegal for a human to drive. Problem solved, all we got to do is get rid of you, driver.

Read some Larry Niven sci fi. The guy figured out the logical consequences of self driving cars 40 years ago.

 

Very well said! Isn't it funny how everyone thinks they're a good driver? But overall the bottom line that will halt the contination of the autonomous trucks push;
WILL be litigation. And it will be massive!

 

It will be deamed an act of god. Computers dont make mistakes.