Future of Trucking - Automation concern

Good articles. But they all have drivers. I have yet to see a truck that would be driverless. Has anyone?

 

Volvo has a driverless conecept without a cab/seat. They've not made a prototype yet. It looks like the trucks in the last wolverene movie. There's an article in one of those trucking trade magazines they send to everyone. "fleetmanager" or something like that.

 

Like I said before, nobody has said they're here already.

 

Driverless Trucks Just Did Something Amazing
Six convoys of driverless trucks just completed a cross-europe trip without incident. A lot of driverless technology is being developed and tested in Europe

 

It was six teams, not six convoys, and this happened 2 1/2 years ago when everybody was buzzing about driverless trucks taking over the industry. They also had drivers behind the wheel of every truck. Things have quieted down quite a bit since then. Probably because somebody asked the question, who's going to get sued the most when one of these trucks kills some people? When you have a human driver and there is an accident, it's either the driver's fault or a malfunction of the equipment. When an autonomous truck kills somebody, you have the truck manufacturer, the software designer, and a long list of other companies who had a hand in making the technology and who are now liable. Lawyers will have a free for all when (if ever) these things hit the road.

 

Google (Waymo One) is now starting self-driving car service in the Phoenix area, but for about 200 select people. They will also have a person behind the wheel, although they have done testing without someone at the wheel.

News Article:

Google's self-driving Waymo spinoff now testing ride-sharing service

Video:

 

This paragraph sums it all up for me. I know at least a dozen commercial drivers that have logged over a million miles without a single accident, fender bender or otherwise.

The service debuting Wednesday marks a significant milestone for Waymo, a company that began as a secretive project within Google in 2009. Since then, its cars have robotically logged more 10 million miles on public roads in 25 cities in California, Arizona, Washington, Michigan and Georgia while getting into only a few accidents — mostly fender benders.

 

You are comparing experienced Class-A drivers with a technology in its infancy. What percentage of Class-A drivers can say they have driven over a million miles accident-free? 10%? What about non-CDL drivers?

We all know the trucking industry is plagued with accidents every single day. The 2,500 driver fleet I used to work for reads all accidents for the week on Sundays. Experienced drivers in the class judge whether or not the accident was preventable. Almost all of them are deemed preventable. To make things even more complicated, this same fleet tells its drivers that the major accidents are caused mostly by experienced drivers (1.5 years+).

People are underestimating the capability of artificial intelligence. Besides the 10 million miles of testing, it also has 7 “billion” miles of virtual simulation testing.