Will self-driving trucks be an issue for truckers

3/13/22. The day I will retire from this profession that has served me well for 43 years.

04/21/19. The day I will retire if I wake up tomorrow and my job was taken over by a self driving truck.

Either date, I’m done. But, I’m looking forward to the day these self driving trucks take over the industry, hopefully it will get rid of these steering wheel holders that are causing all this carnage on the highways. It’ll make my retirement driving much safer.

 

How does the lumpers charge computers or are they going autolump also, kind of hard to hurt a computers feelings,dang world changing fast.

 

It will be tried. After the first trucking company is sued out of existence for a couple billion dollars after an automagically self-driving truck kills a school bus full of kids, the idea will collapse.

We can't even run most trains without an engineer. And they run on RAILS.

Stop the chicken little act. The sky is not falling.

 

No on is saying the sky is falling.

The fact that these trucks are now currently running with freight with a driver behind the wheel in case there is issues and the fact that more trucks are being brought online says a lot.


With more and more trucks coming online driver pay will go down further causing rates to go down for owner operators.

Not long before we have minimum wage steering wheel pretend holders.

If that all plays out owner operators at the very least are a endangered species.

 

No way man , owner ops will be around a very long time, computers will never be able to haul os,ow, heavy haul stuff, he'll they wouldn't even be able to do regular flatbed .. They may do ltl stuff , dock to dock .. But very limited imo, don't drink the tech koolaid , it has a lot of lost hope and dreams in it

 

Os/ow is a niche market, looking at the industry now and talking to a few os/ow drivers they are already frustrated with the influx of inexperienced drivers who drive price down, what do you think will happen when a large influx of TL O/O’s now can’t make a living with a flatbed, reefer or dry van? They will flood that market.


As far as the tech being a pipe dream, I think not, I came from the tech industry and understand how they operate. Think of the auto workers they got replaced by robots. It’s going to happen and it will be felt industry wide.

For one reason alone, and that reason is: every rig manufacturer has now partnered with some company to bring driverless rigs to market, and if they are putting billions into the market they must know something.

Not saying driver will be completely done at first but it will be accomplished in stages.

Stage one: A true steering wheel holder

Stage two: A remote operator

Stage three: A team of maybe 20 remote operators that handle 50-100 rigs at once.

Stage Four: a complete automated system.


Like I said freight is already being transported by amazon and google using driverless rigs with guys behind the wheel to step in if things go sideways.

It’s all about the money, it’s a lot more advantageous to have driverless rigs then with drivers in it.

Next 2 - 5 years will tell you if it’s happening

 

I don’t think there’s going to be an issue for many of us. To begin with, I believe the reason for these vehicles being created is due to the shortage of drivers. We need to recruit.

 

The entire Trucking industry is just a makeup of niche markets... U will never put a truck driver fully out of a job.. Auto workers are completely different , that's production work it takes 0 skilll, all assembly line work takes 0 skill, it makes full sense to automate that ... These tech companies are gonna find out how hard it is to drive a truck safely with a computer..it will not happen , there is to many variables that go into operating a truck safely... It could work dock to dock in a linehaul situation, that is very menial unskilled work... But I will not have a robot drive across the entire country thru 75 different types of weather , thru different cities that have war zones for construction zones and a faulty GPS system to match .. It will never happen in today's world and not for the 100 years.. U tech geeks are filled with piss and vinegar but fail to see things from a realistic standpoint.. All computer and techs know how to do is crunch numbers , they do not have logic or common sense and they cannot be taught... My gps can't even route me down a road that's not truck restricted , or out some of these guys in the,middle of a frickin forest, yet u tech ppl think it's the greatest thing in the world... There's a lot of drivers out here we could navigate around the entire country without a map , let me know when ur robot truck can do that and I might give a little credit to the robot

 

And let's be honest the only reason these big truck companies are throwing billions of dollars at the tech industry is because of they don't , they will be left behind in the dust by their competitors, that happens in every business a. Look back at every great business that has failed, blockbuster was awesome but they failed to believe in the product that Netflix was putting out and failed to invest in the concept of streaming and Netflix put em out of business overnight.. That's just one example , but It happens in every industry... Trucking is no different.. Look what happen to cat they failed to invest in learning how to build a good engine that lived up to emission standards and it put them out of the commercial truck business... I will always respect cat for that though.... But that is why all these companies are throwing so much money at the tech,, it's not because they believe the driverless trucks are possible it's that they want to be the first ones to have their brand name on that driverless truck because they know the possibilities are endless... But I am telling you , a driverless truck will never happen in my life times or my kids lifetime or my grandkids lifetime... People have been talking about robots since the 80s , it's been 40 years and there is still no such thing...

 

This reminds me of a song I hear on the Sinatra channel (old standard). Lyric is something like: "They laughed at Edison for recording sound, told the Wright brothers flight would never happen, and Ford lost his mind creating the horseless carriage". Well something like that. You get the idea. I believe that those who doubt the future of automated trucks are kidding themselves. There is entirely too much money on the line in R & D.