Will we be replaced in the near future?

I can be fired. ... but never replaced

 

A flood of Cheap immigrant labor (illegal or otherwise) should be your real and immediate concern. Trucks with auto-drive technology should be the last thing you worry about.

 

We don't even have self driving cars yet in the market. And the cars that are in the street are still in testing.

It isn't like tomorrow boom! Everybody accept self driving cars. It's gna take years for the transition and we haven't even started yet.

 

My two kids, ages 9 and 7, will (assuming we don't blow each other up) undoubtedly be in a world where driver-operated cars and trucks are obsolete. The only question is exactly how soon will this happen?

 

They can't even get some of the requisite tech to work right. I have been driving trucks with Eaton Vorad radars, Wingman radar, currently Wabco-Meritor system for years. The ones on the new truck I have now works no better than the first generation Eaton-Vorad I used years ago. If they can't even get what should be a simple but required component to work, they'll never get the whole system to work. Driverless trucks look good on paper. But they'll never be as dependable as a good driver. They can't even get a computer to work right for sending emails and watching porn. And we have all heard the horror stories of the GPS being wrong.

 

It should be simple to make a driverless train. Basically the track does the steering, train only needs to deal with faster and slower. I know it's a little more complicated than that, but I'd think trains will be autonomous long before trucks used on public roads are.

 

Our subway system here was autonomous (although operator still manned the front car as backup) until about 7 years ago because the computer was getting into too many major accidents where people were hurt.

May dig up link if i have more time.

 

Don't worry, ever so often this topic comes on this site especially after someone read about it in Popular Science or wherever. They have no idea on what an important role the truck driver plays in this country plus do not know anything about the infrastructure that it would need to make it. Sure they have vehicles that are already doing it but those are fork lifts and such and they have a extremely simple path to follow. I know because right when I got out of the service I was station at Indian Head where we had D-8 Cat bulldozer that drove themselves. Also had other vehicles robotic control and they barely made it off the range. We used these vehicles to remove unexploded ordnance off of old ranges. So will we not see robotic trucks in our life time.

 

If/When it's coming, I don't know...

But it will start in the CMV market first and not cars... There is where the financial motivation (i.e. saving money) to make it happen in CMV vs someone shelling out mega bucks for the latest auto toy. And the initial infrastructure that may be needed or simplified routes can start there with CMVs vs a drive anywhere car option thus making it easier to start a "driverless route" vs family vacation.

And probably in some form of special roads enhanced to have them run on first... But then again, we already compete against Rail Roads which do something similar but on a more fixed point to point infrastructure.

The industry may need to adjust and change and the future may not look like the past... But a complete overhaul of the trucking industry... I agree... Not in the "near" future.

 

When an AI-controlled truck can navigate one of these safely, then I'll give up driving:



Until then, I don't feel threatened in the slightest. Especially considering robots are still having trouble navigating flat surfaces and doorways. It'll be long after I'm dead when they can strap a trailer down.