The future...

stay the same

 

Your guess is as good as anyone else's. Look at past predictions of today's industry and tell me if our guesses will be better than their guesses.

 

In 15 years, I think there may be 20,000 trucks on the road that have an "auto-drive" option that can be engaged on certain roads in good weather conditions, but there will always be a driver in these trucks, and probably be required to be in the seat, regardless. In 40-50 years, who knows, but until and only where massive interstate upgrades are installed, fully autonomous and driverless trucks will never happen.

Wage increases will continue to barely keep up with inflation. HOS rules may go through some changes that will work to REDUCE the number of trucks required to move the same freight. Lack of parking to accommodate truck count increases (to meet higher demands) will force changes to HOS rules and/or huge state parking areas will hopefully be built in key locations to take pressure off ramps and illegal street parking

I think you'll see a few more states legalize longer rig configurations (multi-trailer) for interstate transit. Also we'll probably see trailer longer than 53' become more mainstream with limits to remain x miles from an authorized interstate.

 

Not much will change, we will still get crap drivers which will push Autonomous vehicles into the industry quicker, and have more regulations to deal with to drive a lot of drivers out of the industry.

 

Looking around I think a lot of these clowns lack the capacity to handle even a 48

 

In 20 years there won't be a single self driving truck yet. Just a big idea like the Segway. Nobody made it actually work. Like flying cars. Not happening.

 

I just read that the compamy that owns Uber is developing a retrofit option for existing trucks to make them autonomous. Freightliner is also busy perfecting the technology. They wouldn't be pouring untold amounts of money into development if they were not serious. It's coming and trucking is an endangered profession. That $50k seems like a lot of money but it's more or less a driver's yearly salary. Autonomous trucks don't have to stop for HOS breaks and won't have to have sleepers meaning more cargo capacity. The industry has every incentive to push this technology, unfortunately for us.

 

In 10-20 years, this swifty will still be trying to back into his parking spot.