TForce | The End of the American truck driver

i'm not opposed to the technology, but i just can't see it going totally driverless. Too many variables.

i envision maybe something like linehaul being automated and then local drivers do the local deliveries/final drop offs-------oh wait we already do that----WITH TRAINS.

ATMS are in almost every shopping mall/plaza AND at every bank, yet there are still bank tellers............
 
I'm going to be an Owner Operator then, put ol BillyLo on the side of the door and send that truck down the highway while I stay home, drink a beer give my cat whiskerlick'n treats while those paychecks pile in.

Might even have my robo truck pull some of that UPSF freight that the teamster robo trucks are pulling.
 

But the driver is/was still needed after the truck got off the interstate. So this is more like a "SuperCruise" at this point, which i'm not opposed to.

i think what MAY happen is that drivers will still be necessary, but dependent on what the rules are (if it's ok to sleep while the truck is in motion) then the pay will be cut in half, but the driver is able to do twice the amount of work, so the overal pay will stay the same---at the end of the week the driver will make the same pay as before, while the company gets double the productivity. The truck can be run like a team, but with only one driver.

Will comment more when there is more time.
 
Think on this... Auto trucks drive themselves safely by slowing down; proximity alerts, collision avoidance, etc. what happens when a competitor hires people to harass a auto truck by cutting him off or slowing him down repeatedly to kill opposition transit times. It would be like a constant snow event. Sounds far fetched, but possible I guess
 
Think on this... Auto trucks drive themselves safely by slowing down; proximity alerts, collision avoidance, etc. what happens when a competitor hires people to harass a auto truck by cutting him off or slowing him down repeatedly to kill opposition transit times. It would be like a constant snow event. Sounds far fetched, but possible I guess
Those Automated vehicles have dozens of cameras mounted on them,after whoever's monitoring the vehicle makes a few phone calls,the stunt driver will quickly find himself spread eagled on the hood of his vehicle. Even if the authorities allow the driverless truck I can't see Hazmat being moved on one of them.
 
What are you smokin lol

Don't smoke but there have been days where Scotch, ice, and water may have been involved. Seriously, what insurance company is going to issue a policy to cover a 80,000 lb drone sharing the road with a bus load of lawyers? What company could afford to self insure?
 
Don't smoke but there have been days where Scotch, ice, and water may have been involved. Seriously, what insurance company is going to issue a policy to cover a 80,000 lb drone sharing the road with a bus load of lawyers? What company could afford to self insure?
Well most if not all of the mega carriers are self insured. Just as with health insurance they pay a third party to administer the plan.
 
I don't see it in the next 20 years. We all have the lane alert on the trucks and 3/4 of the time the sensors can not detect the lane for various reasons to foggy raining to hard the lines are to faded. So what happens then the truck just stop and wait.
 
It will be at least 30 years before the autonomous trucks outnumber the regular ones. This technology is still in it's infancy, and a driver still has to be behind the wheel and attentive in case something goes wrong.

If the carriers want to pay less for that job, they'll find it's a job nobody wants to do. The costs won't outweigh the benefits as long as a driver is needed, and the technology is far too imperfect to replace us. Even the most sophisticated version of this technology, developed for military use, still has a fallible weakness in the form of the laser scanning system that tells the vehicle what's around it.

Planes can take off, fly, and land themselves. Most plane crashes are attributed to pilot error. In theory, allowing the plane to fly itself is safer. But would you board a drone? A plane without a pilot in case something goes wrong? I sure wouldn't, and most people don't want to share the road with a driverless truck, either.
 
Well most if not all of the mega carriers are self insured. Just as with health insurance they pay a third party to administer the plan.
I would doubt any trucking company, no matter how big, is totally self insured. More like they pay the first portion, like say a million for example in an accident situation,and then carry a policy to cover the claim or lawsuit above that.
 
So will most jobs. By then the country will have in place free college tuition, medical, food stamps, and housing because there will be no jobs for the masses. It will be a cashless and Godless society. One of which I don't want to be here to see. I pray for those that will...
Except for ceo's and banker's. Oh and wall st. executives. I disagree about the free college tuition med, etc, real americans don't need those. But for the rest of us there will ber debtor prisons.
 
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