Self driving trucks coming

[Flat32]

Huge investments made.  

https://www.trucks.com/2018/06/06/daimler-pushing-development-automated-trucks/

 

[Flat32]

A  little bit of the why.  It seems like it's more of a marketing thing than a real commercial need.

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-daimler-self-driving-trucks-torc-20190329-story.html

[misterNNL]

Thanks for all the various responses posted here along with the views of concern for anyone potentially directly effected by this tech such as drivers,etc. We live in times where everyday things we have have come accustomed to grew up with are evolving almost daily. Brick and mortar stores are being replaced by on-line shopping, and ever think you would simply drive up to a big box store and have them load up your groceries? Nope,me neither,but here we are. Sometime look up the origin of the word Luddite and see what happened when automated weaving looms were coming into common use in the cloth industry. Not a whole lot different than now. Weather we like the changes or not here they come.

[stitchdup]

how many of the driver aids have we seen fail in recent years. There's toyota deciding acceleration should be completely random, teslas crashing into anything and the lane assist/colision avoidance software just plain not working. I'd rather have someone we can blame behind the wheel instead of a computer that has no gray area that a driver would recognise and do something about.

[espo]

The auto producers have brought many safety advancements to the automobile thru the years. While not perfect, the Anti-Lock Braking comes to mind as one of the most useful. The problem with so many lane departure sensors and blind spot monitoring and backup cameras are that they all are designed to compensate for the lack of skills of the driver. This combined with everyone multi tasking and far to many have the attention span of a field mouse. I know I'm considered out of touch and old fashion about many things, but a good 6 speed manual transmission would go a long way to get drivers to start paying more attention to situation awareness and less about the person they're texting about something they had to eat yesterday and where they are going now, OOoo I forgot that also.   

[bobthehobbyguy]

Besides all of the safety concerns there is an equally big issue.  It is unlikely that the jobs lost to self driving trucks will be recovered.  People pay taxes and buy things. Machines do not do any of those things. If we continue eliminating jobs there will be a greater need to help people make ends meet. Definitely not progress in my mind.

[Jim N]

I am no fan of this technology.  These vehicles will wreck and a big rig that has been hacked is a truly frightening prospect to me.

But, the allure of this technology to the trucking industry is big.  Here's why.

There is a tremendous shortage of truck drivers.

Drivers can only operate their trucks 8 - 10 hours (I believe) and then they have to rest.

Payroll and fringe benefits are about 75% of a typical company's expenses.

I can see these operating on rural highways and then drivers taking over when they get into an urban setting.  I most sincerely hope these things are not allowed to run amok in urban settings or in areas prone to bad weather.  But as that baseball philosopher Joaquin Andujar once said:  "There is one word in America that says it all, and that one word is, 'You never know.'"

Unfortunately, there are powerful interests pushing this AI stuff, and until there is a huge failure (which will happen), we will have this forced on us.

[stavanzer]

You said it better than I can, Jim. Drivers have 11 Hours to drive, and a Total of 14 Hours they can be on duty. And that 11 Hours has to be broken up with mandated Lunch and Rest Breaks. Electronic Logs (logbooks) are now mandatory and managing Drive Time is a HUGE part of every drivers day. Dispatchers and Schedulers, have to work within these limits as well.

But, you know who does not know or care about all the rules and limits? The customers! They just want it now!!! Thus most companies are fudging the rules, just to keep business. Because, if your company won't bend the rules, another company will break them and underbid you for time and cost estimates. Thus, the legal rules are observed more in spirit rather than actual practice.

[BaBaBooey]

Frieghtways.com is calling what the trucking industry is going through, a trucking "apocalypse". Weve seen 3, now almost 4 big carriers go under, quite literally with little, to no notice to the employees, again. Its half way through the year. How many more are gonna under? The government is in on this deal, some way, shape or form. How can they let companies basically disappear overnight, no notice to the drivers on the road, again. I got a feeling that all this autonomous and "convoying" technology are contributors to this trend of companies closing up shop. Theres much more involved in it too, not just automation, much more.

[espo]

I Minn. based trucking company with a terminal here in Kansas City just closed last week. Drivers are left without a pay check and just have the rug pulled out from under them. If these companies are hitting the wall the least they can do is give employees, many of them have been with them for years, give them some other notice and not just leave them out in the cold.