Would you recommend a family member or acquaintance to get into trucking

It does not compute.

In order to have the correct answer you need the correct question.

If you want that person to be a tech on call 24/7 chasing after and rebooting bricked trucks or even worse taking a loaded tractor trailer to the curb at the gate and sending it on it's way... that is what you will be doing when robotics take over.

It really ignores the fact that there are heavy trucks that are now in existance under military control that goes where they need to be going with a tank tread part or some other supply to meet at a designated GPS coordinate on the planet somewhere delivering that part. You no longer need a soldier to drive that thing. it will decide for itself how to drive the ground around it according to what the sensors can see. The UK Show Top Gear had a race between a Land Rover vs a standard three axle freightliner duece and half equipped with robotics some years ago. The Rover won but not by much at all. The truck made it there without the drama. It simply arrived. Just a touch longer overland, no roads.

I actually raced a US Humvee once with a friend decades ago, him off road and me on pavement. Simple goal. First to gate. He was first despite being a 10 ton desiel truck. He then demonstrated for me a 60 degree concrete sloped stick without flipping over. That is pretty impressive especially when I would be the that one falling out. I learned so much in two days of fun in the fields with that more than I did in all my life off road with a semi tractor trailer and I did quite a bit of it.

The problem is pay. You are not going to have someone slaving at .35 a mile. Yet dozens fill and clamour to get a orientation spot at .35 a mile thinking they will be forking over thousands of dollars a week doing nothing but holding a wheel. Then they are told to wait a couple of days until a dock opens up with that load of potatochips. It will be a while. They are literally not that respected or paid enough to endure such BS in this industry imposed by the shippers and recievers.

Go to any large warehouse. Nestle is a fine example. 200 docks. Half a mile long building. 3 forklifts, one manager and one janitor plus a fix it man. That's it. If this was Meijehers in Detriot (I made sure to be banned from that facility in the 80's...) it took a day, and a night to unload. Yourself. Free. (As in not paying a lumper outside money to unload your own truck that your company tossed maybe 30 bucks at you to labor 18 hours to lift and move that crap.)

Fast forward into the 2000's we were dispatched back to Meijhers in Detroit by FFE (Spelling always mangled. I will get this right eventually) and we first warned dispatcher saying we are going to be arrested the moment the gaurd shack runs my name and ID. and the reasons why.

I was told that was the non union side of the facility I had trouble with back then. This load was specifically packaged. packed, palletized, wrapped, counted, monitored temps recorded installed in 4 places on the trailer plus two seals on the door and front air intake vent on the trailer corner (Reefer) above the forward ladder.( In all my years I maybe was up top of a reefer maybe once or twice using those ladders lol. Usually it's a bridge that swept snow in winters up there)

Meighers knew #### well who was coming. They actually said it was ok. It was a team situation. We arrived. Went around back, unloaded in 12 minutes and told bye bye, here are your stamped bills delivered. (Signed shipper load and count) The gaurd actually remembered me too. His eyes got this big and said "YOU little [really degrodatory word...]" I told him to shut it and call this traffic manager by name and number and not to say anything more at risk of losing his place. His eyes got even bigger after the call was completed. They had a dock waiting with two forklifts at it when we backed in.

With all that drama, unnnecessary wasted motion, lost income, inflation, ever increasing food costs etc and so forth and so on, and micromanagement bordering on enforcement against you the driver rather than working for your benefit in the so called career. HA.... Any driver on earth talking about this work as a "Career" the same way my father slaved his life at the power company as his father did before him representing close to 100 years of combined work... are not drivers completely aware of how easily they can be disposed of and replaced at a moment's notice at any time.

Or even the company that poor schmuck works for is itself disposed of and replaced by another willing to haul the same freight cheaper.

 

Until a self driving truck can do this, don't waste my time:

 

No , not as a carrer. As part of job yes but not exclusivly.