Will industry shortage make automation come sooner

Autonomous trucks are coming. It is going to happen. They will be safer than trucks with drivers behind the wheel. I know that brings out the people who scream about computer failures.

When the computer fails, the truck stops. But what about a blowout on a steer tire, or any other number of situations? The computer will handle it better than the experienced driver with three decades behind the wheel. Why? Because the computer has been programmed using the experience of that truck driver but has eliminated the perception, and reaction time. The computer can calculate hundreds of solutions in the time that it takes us to realize there is a problem.

Does anyone think that recent graduate of CDL school driving for a major carrier can react better than a computer when a car cuts the truck off? Ride in a Tesla, on auto drive, then reassess the situation.

The question is how do we, as drivers, fit into the equation with the future of truck driving.

 

I'm sure ATA is hard at work getting politicians on board with Automation for trucking.

 

Keep in mind, this tech is not cheap. It will take a long time to get the return on investment, for just one truck. Yes, we’ll see a few major carriers deploy 10 of them or even a 100 of them. But they’ll still have thousands of trucks with CDL drivers behind the wheel.

 

It's not a coincidence that the people most fervently claiming robots will replace drivers are the people with little ot no experience driving 18-wheelers. ALL of their input comes from breathless stories written by clueless 'journalists" who read Press Releases from inventors.

They don't know what they don't know. I've made at least $150k since the first time I heard about robot trucks. Mostly the True Believers are people looking for an an excuse to not work. For every possible job they could get, they have an excuse why they shouldn't.

Maybe the True Believers could explain what the robot will do better when the steer tire blows out in traffic, not just say "they will handle it better." Better how? They did what instead of what I would do? It's all theory to them and BETTER is just something you add to reality like adding pepper to a meal. Sprinkle on a little BETTER and life is good.

 

50 years of automating airplanes has reduced the number of pilots in airliners from 3 to 2. That is a MUCH easier environment to automate. But you have a point, at least with automation airliners never crash, so we have that to look forward to. /sarc

 

Not saying that you wouldn’t handle the blown steer tire well, but the computer would handle it better. The computer knows the tire is blowing from data received from sensors. It saw the pressure change in a millisecond. The computer can run a thousand possible actions through its processor in a millisecond. Then it chooses and takes the best action.

Those real life gets experiences of the experienced drivers make up the data used for this programming. Basically, the computer knows what you would do, and what a thousand other experienced drivers would do in that situation. It analyzes that and takes the best action without hesitating.

What makes the computer better at it is the raw processing power of the CPU. We have to perceive the danger, decide what action to take, then take that action.

The computer doesn’t have the distractions that we have. It isn’t thinking about the wife back home, it isn’t thinking about the bill that needs to be paid. It’s not pissed at the dispatcher or the four wheeler that just cut off the truck. It’s not sipping coffee and it doesn’t have to pee. It’s not tired, it’s not trying to get extra miles out of the ELD.

 

Ever notice how many that are coming into trucking look for the hard rules, the Always and Nevers?

Never use your jake in this type weather.
Never eat in X truckstop at the lunch counter
Never go here, never pull this type wagon
Never throw tire chains
Always be parked before the sun goes down
Always stop and park when it’s going to snow
Always go down a grade in the same gear you climbed it.

Anyways, what the programmers will do will be just like what everyone else who does not drive will do: set all parameters according to that thick headed, slow learning, NonDriving steeringwheelholding, non mirror using Braindead. Always and Never. Weather gets bad, Always stop. Planes aren’t completely automated, trains aren’t completely automated. Neither will trucks be. You would figure that the railroad could set the trains and tracks and whatnot to operate autonomously, but they have not.

Why not?

Because computers can only do what they are programmed to do and only sense what they’re programmed to sense and react ONLY to how it was programmed to act. That leaves it vulnerable.

 

Why does the automation in my truck try and CAUSE wrecks? It doesn't have distractions. It's not worried about the wife at home. and on and on and on. In 2-3 years of these false alarms, NOTHING is improved. But, yeah the robots will do it without mistakes. Sometimes it's the radar that initiates a panic stop for no reason. Sometimes it's the camera that initiates the panic stop for no good reason. In milliseconds it sees a shadow or a guardrail in a curve and it applies the brakes, which is a really good way to cause my tanker truck of HazMat to wreck. About once per month for almost 3 years the robot braking system tries to wreck my truck. The certainty of the inexperienced, it's what powers the internet.


If you've ever written computer programs you understand the difference between the theory and real life.

 

Because it was programmed by someone who has never driven a truck based upon the intel they received from the bottom end solar powered Braindead.

A fully autonomous truck will be the equivalent of a Braindead minus the distractions. And in that way, they will tout it as ‘better.’

 

Autonomous trucks have already made thousands of runs without deaths or accidents. My degree is in Computer Science. I have written many programs. Tell me, which is safer, a computer operating the truck, programmed using the knowledge and experience of scores of truck drivers or a driver fresh out of a three week school. We all know the answer.