How will autonomous trucks affect driver (pilot) pay?

Self-Driving Trucks: Are Truck Drivers Out of a Job?

However, this doesn’t mean that trucking jobs aren’t going to change. The major change is that drivers will not be expected to do as much manual driving, which could actually be seen as a benefit. Think of the job of a truck driver slowly looking more and more similar to the job of an airplane pilot. The truck will be able to drive on its own, but the population will feel a lot safer knowing somebody is behind the wheel just in case.

If you are a truck driver worried about your job being lost to an autonomous truck, we hope this update puts your mind at ease and makes you at least a little bit excited about the future of the trucking industry. Truck drivers will continue to be extremely important in the industry, even if there are self-driving trucks on the freeways.

Will that human truck "pilot" with the truck on "auto-pilot" be making less money than somebody who actually has to turn the steering wheel at all times?

 

Anybody dumb enough to sit in an autonomous truck deserves their life ruined, which is what they'll get when that truck wrecks.

 

You keep hearing about self driving truck companies going belly up or getting stalled it's just too expensive and unrealistic to make it happen fortunately.

 

Its coming and quicker than most of us realize. look at how many cars already have the technology. America has fallen out of love with cars and the lure of the open road has lost its luster. Its time to face the facts, driving can be done safer and CHEAPER by technology!

 

Big deal.

People get scared of little changes where it won't effect them.

 

So, for at least until 2050, paid humans will still be required to sit in the cabs of "some-kind-of" trucks?

 

Technology puts people out of work. It takes many more jobs away than it provides. Or it makes working people poorer. When people are poorer, they have less money to spend. Technology doesn't sound like an economy simulator to me. The only person who will win is the CEO of the robot corporation. Capitalism and the American Dream works best when MANY human hands are still priceless.

Now something like Toyota Safety Sense radar might be OK in a truck to stop it in an emergency should the driver not see traffic ahead in the fog.

No, we don't need bots in trucks, we need sensible humans with proper training.

 

I actually am looking forward to seeing it come true and with a big farming background we have had this technology for over 10 years and yes I know that there is a big difference between running 70 with others on the road and 15 mph in a field but I was extremely hesitant about it on tractors and had the same thought as all of yall but after being around it i have come to enjoy using it there is just a less stressful after you get used to it steering for you and gives you more time to pay attention to other things with your rig and be able to do the job more efficiently but if you think that you can now sleep or play on your phone you will be the problem on the road

 

Dont need it and dont want it. It wont be going in my truck . the day they make it a law that every car on road has to be robot , that is the day i hang up the keys. Until then ill be westbound runnin cmon

 

Here is something from the link you provided:

"Even with the concerns that loom over the automated vehicle industry, according to Business Insider, “Tech leaders and financiers alike are confident that self-driving trucks will become the norm as early as the next decade"

In other words, the people pushing for this technology admit that they are probably 10 years away from making it happen, and in my opinion they're much further away than that. It's much easier and safer to make an autonomous car that can't kill a bunch of people on the roads, and nobody has gotten that done yet.

The article you linked to is over a year old, and there has been very little new written about autonomous trucks since then. Whenever you hear about one of these companies now saying that they made a successful test run of a certain distance without a human behind the wheel, they're just looking for more investment capital. It doesn't mean they're any closer to making it a reality.