Trucks Are Killing Us • Hacker News Board

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#71

Post by notNow » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 6:19 PM UTC

robbrown451 wrote: post #45

notNow wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the trucking industry is one of the biggest employers in the US. Are you OK with devastating these people's lives for extra efficiency promised safety? Before we push for more automation and job losses, we need to revamp the whole political/economic/social system to ensure a more egalitarian income distribution since the vast majority of the Earth's population are proletariat who exchange their labor in…

If everything was going to be automated all at once, this "devastation" might be the case. But it won't happen all at once, it happens over the course of a decade or two. In almost every case in history, automation has increased jobs and increased the quality of life. Your post reminds me of this story: "Prof. Friedman visited China in the early 1960s and was taken by a government official to see a public works proje…

Since you quoted that super villain Friedman, it's a futile exercise to discuss this issue with you but touching on the silly analogy cited by Dr. Evil:

Abandoning spoons to shovels ==> 1000X efficiency gain and net positive mass-scale job opportunities

Abandoning shovels to heavy equipment ===> 100X efficiency gain and net positive of mass-scale specialized job opportunities.

Abandoning manual trucks to fully auto ===> ~1X efficiency (disputed) and net negative of job opportunities for the masses save for highly specialized super white collar jobs such as for engineers and developers like us.

Do you really think that it's OK from an economic point of view and not politically as this is almost settled to destroy the livelihoods of these poor & lower middle class people just to get an estimated albeit unrealistic 100% efficiency boost?

Are you ready to pay the price in terms of increasing crime rates and lower median quality of life and seeing decrepit hoods everywhere except inside your gated community where you plan to hide from all those poor people and truckers-turned-criminals on the street?

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#72

Post by bro-stick » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 6:19 PM UTC

notNow wrote: post #35

macNchz wrote: post #3

Self-driving trucks seem to have such great promise to improve the safety and efficiency of the trucking industry and our highways in general. Even if they're only self-driving during the long haul sections and human drivers take over for local deliveries it would make a huge difference. Hopefully the various interested lobbies don't try to put too many artificial barriers in the way of self driving trucks becoming a…

I think that the trucking industry is one of the biggest employers in the US. Are you OK with devastating these people's lives for extra efficiency promised safety? Before we push for more automation and job losses, we need to revamp the whole political/economic/social system to ensure a more egalitarian income distribution since the vast majority of the Earth's population are proletariat who exchange their labor in…

It won't happen all at once because there would be massive pushback.

Even so, the handwriting is on the wall: the meat-guided truck-driving era is almost over and will gradually shrink to niches as automated truck driving systems are deployed across fleets.

Perhaps a private person will be able to invest in a private automated truck as investment, trick it out with chrome and send it out in the world to make money while that owner sleeps in?

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#73

Post by ajmurmann » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 6:20 PM UTC

notNow wrote: post #35

macNchz wrote: post #3

Self-driving trucks seem to have such great promise to improve the safety and efficiency of the trucking industry and our highways in general. Even if they're only self-driving during the long haul sections and human drivers take over for local deliveries it would make a huge difference. Hopefully the various interested lobbies don't try to put too many artificial barriers in the way of self driving trucks becoming a…

I think that the trucking industry is one of the biggest employers in the US. Are you OK with devastating these people's lives for extra efficiency promised safety? Before we push for more automation and job losses, we need to revamp the whole political/economic/social system to ensure a more egalitarian income distribution since the vast majority of the Earth's population are proletariat who exchange their labor in…

That argument can be applied to all automation. I completely agree that it's a huge political and economical problem that owning the means of production becomes more and more important whereas actual labor becomes less important. To me the obvious solution is more socialism and eventually once everything is automated even some form of capitalism. However, especially in the US where due to the cold war anything social is a red flag for many we aren't going to be able to solve this before it becomes a much larger problem. So we either have to play this through and force action or stop all innovation because anything else just slows the process down and makes us less competitive.

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#74

Post by copsarebastards » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 6:25 PM UTC

macNchz wrote: post #3

Self-driving trucks seem to have such great promise to improve the safety and efficiency of the trucking industry and our highways in general. Even if they're only self-driving during the long haul sections and human drivers take over for local deliveries it would make a huge difference. Hopefully the various interested lobbies don't try to put too many artificial barriers in the way of self driving trucks becoming a…

> Hopefully the various interested lobbies don't try to put too many artificial barriers in the way of self driving trucks becoming a reality.

I just don't see this happening. A qualified truck driver costs a trucking company upwards of $30K/year in salary alone. The cost of running a truck capable of driving itself even partially is obviously going to be higher, but at $30K/year + other human-related expenses, it will pay for itself very quickly. Even if regulation drives up the cost a lot it will still be cost-effective to run self-driving trucks.

I think a bigger concern is that self-driving trucks create a high up-front cost and low long-term cost: the ideal conditions for large businesses to drive out small businesses and make it impossible to start a trucking business.

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#75

Post by rcthompson » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 6:27 PM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #60

rcarrigan87 wrote: post #48

I'm all for the safety arguments being made by the author but he does paint the trucking industry as this huge money making business when that really isn't the case. Trucking is a very low margin business. These guys live and die based on controlling costs. It's an industry where innovation is very hard because you really need to justify every dollar spent on R&D. Quoting $700B total industry revenue and saying there…

The article bothered me because of the presumption that the author made about hours of service, and as a former driver, in my opinion the issue is not the HOS (hours of service) rules, its the way companies, especially many smaller ones dispatch their drivers - you can be expected to go from working days, to working nights instantly, and it can really fuck hardcore with your sleep schedule - so while you can be compl…

What would you think of a rule that said you could only continue driving if you have slept for at least 6 of the past 24 hours? (I'm not sure what the exact numbers should be, but you get the idea.)

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#76

Post by ajmurmann » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 6:28 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #27

ajmurmann wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm carefully optimistic since this would be in there interest of the trucking industry and they already seem to be succeeding at pushing laws through that are bad for the drivers. I would love a system where the trucks get driven to a lot outside of the city where they get set on a automatic course to the equivalent lot at the destination. During transit no person is onboard at all. At the destination lot a human en…

> I'm carefully optimistic since this would be in there interest of the trucking industry How would self-driving trucks help the trucking industry? It seems like driverless technology will only make the business even more commoditized than it already is, and the only ones that make any money will be the one or two companies with the iPhone apps where you push the button to get your truck.

I agree with practically everything you said. However, I expect that the companies that do most of the lobbying are larger and are all the ones expecting to be one of the one out two companies with the iPhone apps that now also don't have to deal with drivers anymore. The big companies will be able to upgrade their first, small companies won't be able to. The small companies get pushed out of the market. So I expect large companies to push for this.

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#77

Post by jbeales » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 6:39 PM UTC

hyperpape wrote: post #26

I'm not able to comment on all parts of the article, but one thing stuck out at me: deaths were up from 2009-2013, but so was the volume of freight being shipped: http://www.transtats.bts.gov/osea/seasonaladjustment/?PageVa... . That makes that particular statistic quite dubious. Disclosure: I work for a SAAS company serving the logistics industry, which is why I knew that. I don't really have an opinion about how re…

That's the kind of data I was looking for too! I'm also on the software fringes of trucking, and that was my reaction to the 2009-2013 statistic. Pretty much anything driven by economic activity is up over that period, we should be looking at accidents per kiloton or something like that.

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#78

Post by BurningFrog » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 6:41 PM UTC

rcthompson wrote: post #75

Aloha wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article bothered me because of the presumption that the author made about hours of service, and as a former driver, in my opinion the issue is not the HOS (hours of service) rules, its the way companies, especially many smaller ones dispatch their drivers - you can be expected to go from working days, to working nights instantly, and it can really fuck hardcore with your sleep schedule - so while you can be compl…

What would you think of a rule that said you could only continue driving if you have slept for at least 6 of the past 24 hours? (I'm not sure what the exact numbers should be, but you get the idea.)

Sounds like a sensible rule that is impossible to enforce.

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#79

Post by notatoad » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 6:50 PM UTC

rcarrigan87 wrote: post #48

I'm all for the safety arguments being made by the author but he does paint the trucking industry as this huge money making business when that really isn't the case. Trucking is a very low margin business. These guys live and die based on controlling costs. It's an industry where innovation is very hard because you really need to justify every dollar spent on R&D. Quoting $700B total industry revenue and saying there…

the idea that there is maybe not "room to spend" on safety seems absurd. Safety should something that only happens if you can afford it. If the cost of shipping needs to increase to accomodate the cost of safety, then let's do that, but trucking needs to be safe, both for the truckers and the other road users, no matter what the financial cost is.

If paying for safety hurts the trucking industry by making rail or air freight more attractive, i don't see that as a bad thing. We should not all have to subsidize the trucking industry by compromising our own safety on the roads.

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#80

Post by OscarCunningham » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 6:51 PM UTC

macNchz wrote: post #3

Self-driving trucks seem to have such great promise to improve the safety and efficiency of the trucking industry and our highways in general. Even if they're only self-driving during the long haul sections and human drivers take over for local deliveries it would make a huge difference. Hopefully the various interested lobbies don't try to put too many artificial barriers in the way of self driving trucks becoming a…

I suspect that this NYtimes article is a move by the lobby for self-driving cars.