Autonomous trucks, what if sensor fails & an accident occurs?

The owner gets sued. The registered owner. And the company that holds the permits, tags and so on. All of that gets sued.

It would be interesting that there will be no driver to prosecute if it kills a family. (Whoopsie... so solly)

If I had a billion, I would hire old time truckers with manuals. Never Robot trucks.

Remember robot cars have killed people already within the past year or two.

 

Won’t be in our driving lifetime. Besides, have you seen the current crop of drivers? The trucks are already autonomous.

 

That's funny right there, I don't care who you are. -Larry The Cable Guy

 

I already know how these pencil pushers will make it work. It will be fully auto but will have a “driver” in the truck to “supervise” probably end up being a Joe Shmoe that needed a job to get out of momma’s basement they’ll probably pay him minimum or near minimum and should an accident happen due to autopilot malfunction the “driver” will be blamed. Of course the company pays any financial damage but should anyone die the driver will get the criminal charges instead of the owner.

 

That's like saying during the industrial revolution "I will only hire horse carriage drivers, not them gas engine crap. Those cars have fire and explosives inside them and already killed a driver or two".


Statistically, automated driving is safer than humans. (Try to think of the lady you saw two blocks away texting on her phone and doing her make up at the red light or the 17 year oldbilly with the chinese aftermarket tuned 25 year old honda civic cutting in and out at 120 mph). Machines are faster, never get tired, not emotional. News just cherry pick the times when the crash happened by an automated vehicle, not the times when it avoided a possible accident. (Which has happened a lot more than accidents, if you don't believe me, google it or watch it on youtube).

I am just starting out in trucking; however, I do know it's only a job for the next 10 years or so... Who knows, the computing power has been exponentially growing every year, maybe we'll get them even sooner.

I do wish I could keep driving till I die; however, we have to adapt as society will def not adapt to us. I will teach myself programming while waiting in loading docks and/or an hour before sleep. Better to be prepared than just "I know better cuz it's been done like this for the past 100 years".

Anyways, that's just my 2 cents tho. Hopefully by the time that comes we have sort of a backup, because I'm sure as hell the government won't give a #### whatsoever.

 

I’d like to see those autotrucks take a couple mountain backroads with barely any wiggle room, 15% grades, and faded lines.I think they’ll just keep them to city driving and popular highways only.

 

The North American highway system just isn’t up to date enough to handle autonomous trucks. Is very poor shape to begin with, no markings, etc. It’s a long ways off.

 

I've done alot of research on autonomous trucks and right now they are at level 2/5. Level 4 is fully autonomous, dailmer says just got to level 2. Level 4 will be reached in 10-15 years. Gonna take years to make the millions of trucks to replace the current non-autonomous trucks. Final mile drivers will always be needed ( local drivers ). They are hoping to replace OTR drivers for the most part. As far as I know, nobody is working on making autonomous flatbeds, oversize or gasoline trucks, + the other kinds of trucking ( dump trucks).

Canada's highway infrastructure is terrible, our winters are pretty brutal too. I don't think fully autonomous trucks will make it here for years after the US rolls them out.

Most people believe in 20-25 years before fully autonomous trucks will be doing OTR. You'll have a job for atleast another 30 years or so.

10 years is way to soon.

 

Einride is a truck manufacturer in Sweden. They have 2 fleets of fully autonomous trucks, not even a cab for a driver to sit in. 1 fleet is moving freight on a combination of private and public roads, max speed is 25mph. The other fleet is logging trucks, on private logging roads. At this point, they are just straight trucks, but I'm sure that will change in the future. They can also be operated remotely, like a drone if theres an issue that arises.