Driverless trucks

Planes pretty much fly themselves these days. You have auto pilot, ILS and everything else. They can basically land or be at the right altitude and turn at the proper angles at the proper speeds to be able to be perfectly lined up in the glide scope and smoothly land but they still have pilots at the controls. Hell I’d rather have automated planes with no pilots than trucks barreling off an exit ramp at 70 mph slamming into a bus full of elementary school kids on their way back from a field trip excited to tell mommy and daddy about their first field trip and not mommy and daddy saying they can’t tell if this is their little Johnny because his face has been crushed because of a system failure or glitch in the trucks programming

 

It will be here before everyone thinks but....and thats a big but...a couple things will happen:
1st = you'll probably only see it on long hauls with an "operator" on board [so think airplane, locomotive, light rail etc]
2nd = big trucks will shunt off to city trucks which will have short trailers and be 100% autonomous within the city itself

My prediction is you'll be fine in the industry for a bit, so dont let anything stop you, but don't think you'll be the trucker of today nor will you receive the same pay level [you guys reading stop growning, i didnt say you were payed handsomely] and the local guys sadly will be gone......

 

I can't see how they could operate driver less trucks on the highway and if they did at some point someone still has to be there to fuel it up and check all the other fluids. BHP Billition are turning some of their huge haul trucks into driverless trucks however these vehicles are on private roads at a mine site and at best are only traveling at 45 km per hour or about 28 mph. However at some point these vehicles have to be fueled and serviced and someone does have to physically attach the fuel hose. Some of the larger Cat 797 dump trucks hold up to 8000 litres of diesel.

 

Okay, I'm a little late to this party, but though I'm not a trucker yet, I will be retiring from public school teaching this June and going to a trucking academy...somewhere.
First, since some of you mentioned robotic teaching, it was in the air some years ago that remote teaching would be the next step in education. Think about how much $ could be saved by closing down schools and extra staff and just teach via Skype/Google Classroom! Besides, kids are into tech, so the transition can be nothing but positive.
Then Covid hit and we're forced to do remote teaching. I'm telling you in less than a year of doing this crap, we are already seeing how bad it is. Kids are disconnected (many don't even show up), they have so many distractions at home (TV, siblings, radio, animals, etc). It's very common to have students babysit their siblings while during "class" and bouncing a crying infant on their knees. Think they can learn anything in that environment? I'm telling you it's a crisis if we don't get kids back to school, and parents and educators know it.

Next, on a related note is electric cars which is supposed to be all the rage in 10 years. Can't see that either, as in my neighborhood there are three brand new service stations built. I think the investors have the foresight to know that if electric cars are going to be all that, why would they invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into an obsolete venture? Not gonna happen.

So as far as autonomous trucks are concerned, it will come. When? Not sure, but from everything I read it can't/won't be a reality for many decades. Even then I can't see it where there will be no pilot at all. If anything, I can see where the driver/pilot takes more of a broker and logistics role while on the road.

And everyone talks about the legalities and dangers of these things if and when it does come.
What I see is a business venture. Think about how many of these trucks can be easily disabled by simply spray painting an optical sensor, thus rendering it dead on the road. Call me and I'll clean it up and get it going again for $200-300 a pop. A couple of service calls a day and I'm SET!

just because you can, doesn't mean you should.