Those worried about self-driving trucks taking your jobs, don't!

Sure, you get to randomly select 4 drivers from each of the 5 biggest companies. We won't even make you take the Chicago outfits, or Felon Express.

 

You can pick any of my 20 drivers, even me if you want, and I'm old and worn out.

 

You're missing the point, "old and worn out", are typically the best drivers. Companies that hire those drivers even their "worst" are typically miles ahead of what you see from the common carriers with hundreds, thousands of drivers. Hell, watch the forum and see how many new drivers are "I can't find a job" after wrecks, drugs, alcohol, etc.

 

I drove a Kenworth just last week. Had 8000 miles on it. Full digital electronic dashboard. It went out. Just quit working. Froze up and then went blank. About 12 hours later it apparently reset itself or worked out some magic and came back on. Was driving down the road and it went out again. Had to use my GPS to even know what my speed was. Brand new truck!

They equip these trucks with all these collision avoidance things on there. They don’t work right. They think they see things that aren’t there. They scream at you, wanna lock the brakes up, and there’s nothing there. Happens about once a month on trucks equipped with this stuff. That alone is going to cause accidents.

we won’t even get into the infrastructure that’s gonna be required at all the shipping and receiving locations. Anyone over the age of 25? You can still work to retirement age as a truck driver. I’ll guarantee it

 

Definitely, even new drivers will still be needed just like we still need pilots. However, as technology advances the "drivers" will become less active and skilled.

 

Which century is this taking place in?

 

Honestly I think the AI is almost there. The programming is almost there. They’re already implementing stuff warehouse side. The main problem is that on trucks, there is no IF it breaks, its WHEN it breaks. And most engineers think stuff like trucking is below them. So the most obvious outcomes will continue to baffle them

 

Maybe in my great great grandchildrens generation, some trucks will be able to do some basic work, but nothing more.

 

I would say about 1 in 5 are bad truckers.

 

The less active and skilled horse has long ago left the barn, unfortunately. Think about how few of the new crop have any mechanical aptitude at all. When you and I were young @MartinFromBC , pretty every driver, except the bottom of the barrel types, at least had the ability to get a truck off the side of the road and to a nearby shop. Whether that was caging a brake, or pouring a hub full of oil if the bearing was okay, or swapping a wire to get taillights going... if we could get off the side of the road, we did. That's a very rare thing anymore.

I can think of 2 good reasons driving this change. Most of these fleets don't even let guys change light bulbs, much less anything more intensive. And a big chunk of kids grow up without any exposure to anything even remotely mechanic, and that's a cultural thing related to both the urbanization of our countries and kids who don't get to spend time with anyone with mechanical aptitude.