The future of trucking? Self driving trucks?

Yawn ... by the time this filters down to the point of eliminating drivers' jobs and restricting new hires, most of the drivers will have gone through the revolving door and into something else.

For some segments of the industry, it is going to be a very good thing to see robots and autonomous trucks; some drivers are so dangerous and so unable to handle just basic skills like pulling forward without hitting anything, so this would be an improvement by light-years.

 

Autonomous trucks will be OK until the Cloud gets hacked, then "Maximum Overdrive".

Maximum Overdrive (1986) - IMDb

 

Han Solo was an outlaw trucker.

 

Will autonomous trucks dump piss all over the parking lots?

Will they take their breaks at the fuel island?

Will they sit in the left lane doing 59 mph while the autonomous truck beside them is running 59 mph?

Bring it on......As Ridgeline said this is just hype. And I'll be happily dead as will most of us.

 

I know they have the technology to make a truck that can drive itself around… on the purely capitalistic surface this even makes more sense than cars that drive themselves. The drivers wage is the most expensive part of running a truck, with fuel following closely behind that. Companies like UPS and FedEx that run a lot of terminal to terminal line haul operations would be obvious candidates for this, but throw in one pinch of work or customer service that needs to be provided on the other end and well, you need a driver to do it.

 

It isn't about the wages, albeit robots do cost a bit to maintain.

It is about safety, and this is what trips everyone up when they talk about the issue of autonomy.

With what we have right now, the foreign and illegal drivers, we still have a group beyond them that causes a lot of the same safety issues >>> the crap drivers. These are the ones who just don't give a crap about who they cut off, what damage they cause, and so on.

This is where replacing drivers makes sense, potentially fewer accidents and fewer people getting killed.

 

The technology that's been crying wolf for 15 years is only 5-15 years away, and likely always will be.
"I'm not going to earn a paycheck today because in 5-15 years I might be replaced by a robot."
Even if you pay for the training out of your pocket, chances are you are ahead of the game by only working 2 years in the industry. If anyone has a higher-paying, easier to enter industry that isn't going to replace employees with robots, they should already be working in it.

Eventually the chicken littles will be right, but why give up a paycheck before it happens? I'm certain when 100% of vehicles on roads are robot driven it will be safer. But that will take years after the first OTR trucks are delivering OTR freight.