Good riddance. Just because a job exists doesn't mean it's a fair contract or even beneficial to the employee. If you drive cross-country and break down your hourly rate according to how many hours you spend tied to your load, it only comes out to be slightly more than minimum wage, if even that. I know a guy who has spent an entire week, 24/7, stranded across the country and he only received $200 for it from his company. That's less than $2 / hr. A pizza delivery guy can make more than that just in tips. I'm not crying for the trucking industry.
The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs
301–310 of 471 posts
Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs
#302The demonstration in Europe shows that driverless trucking is right around the corner. The primary remaining barriers are regulatory. What about the roads themselves? I'm curious how an autonomous truck will handle a snow-covered highway, fog, potholes, and tight corners caused by narrow roads, bad parking, snow banks, etc. This is a way of life where I live (Boston area). The article about the Russian driverless van…
"What about the roads themselves? I'm curious how an autonomous truck will handle a snow-covered highway, fog, potholes, and tight corners caused by narrow roads, bad parking, snow banks, etc." It won't; at least, it won't need to handle narrow roads, bad parking, snow banks, etc. The autonomous truck need not drive the whole route that a human driver does now. Drive down the Ohio Turnpike and you will see numerous p…
Would it still be an advanced net if you had humans in the trucks as a 'backup', with the autonomous driving doing 90% of the 'boring' driving down the highways? Humans would still drive the last mile (ha!).
Would that be significant safer and more efficient to make it worthwhile?
If you limit autonomous driving to the main freight routes on the highway, I can see self driving vehicles happening a lot sooner than I previously expected. Like 20 years sooner.
Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs
#303Further fuel efficiencies will be had as the self-driving fleets adopt platooning technologies, like those from Peloton Technology, allowing trucks to draft behind one another in highway trains.
Great. Now imagine trying to merge onto a highway, only to be cutoff by a long train of trucks blindly following each other, inches apart.
Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is likely that fewer cyclists will get crushed like a grape under a semi that's instrumented for self-driving. If it works better, the technology will be launched somewhere in the world, and economic pressure will spread it.
I think the opposite effect would happen and it would be safer for cyclists. There are already cars being equipped with pedestrian and cyclist detection. Sensors can see all around the truck vs the driver view having many deadspots. The computer could be forced to slow down or use safe passing distance while drivers have the free will to break those laws. Also the computer probably doesn't have a bias against cyclist…
I'm agreeing with you: Fewer cyclists would die due to automated trucks.
Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
One accident might set back consumer driving for 50 years, but not commercial. The safety record simply needs to be much better than human drivers, which shouldn't be too hard, because one driver is already taken out of the equation. And there are billions upon billions to be saved, in our corporatocracy of the USA, it WILL happen. Bad roads shouldn't be too much of a problem, they can just use humans on the bad road…
I agree re: the rock/bag, err on the side of caution because any potential delays will be dwarfed by the overall savings of autonomous vehicles and lead to safer driving for other road users.
Wanna know the great thing about humanity? We have almost solved this problem, twice:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112882857/new-scanning...
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231041901_Portable_...
Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs
#306> Dealing with gear changes, airbrakes, load shifting, other vehicles that will inevitably cut you off, and much more. Awhile back there was a post about the early experience of a young and enthusiastic programmer. The take away phrase, in response to someone sending nonsense input, was "Some people just want to watch the world burn." I can see assholes trying to make sure that an automated truck can't change lanes,…
It's an interesting thought, but I don't think this will be a significant problem. The inevitable combination of laws, surveillance, and social norms will, as it does now, keep the vast majority of people from doing random asshole acts like this. The self-driving trucks will, by definition, be equipped with omnidirectional, high resolution 3d cameras. Who was that guy who kept cutting off our truck? Well, we could 3d…
I work at a manufacturing company.
The carts are like little flat bed trucks, and they do one thing: move empty and full bins from station to station, and the warehouse. They have rollers on the flatbed part, that push bins over to the hole in the wall at a station. The hole in the wall has similar rollers. They follow a set route along the wall of a hallway that's used by people and the carts.
Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes but those 30 deaths are people knowingly working a job that society understands is dangerous, not a family in a minivan driving to grandma's house that was unlucky enough to be in the wrong part of the highway at the wrong time. That is a huge difference to most people.
> not a family in a minivan driving to grandma's house. A total of 3,660 people died in large truck crashes in 2014. Sixteen percent of these deaths were truck occupants, 68 percent were occupants of cars and other passenger vehicles, and 15 percent were pedestrians, bicyclists or motorcyclists. The number of people who died in large truck crashes was 16 percent higher in 2014 than in 2009 [1] One incident would hard…
I agree. I was just pointing out it's a fallacy to compare coal miner's deaths to deaths caused by automated trucking. Whatever happens my only prediction is that it will be messy and polarizing :-)
Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs
#308> Dealing with gear changes, airbrakes, load shifting, other vehicles that will inevitably cut you off, and much more. Awhile back there was a post about the early experience of a young and enthusiastic programmer. The take away phrase, in response to someone sending nonsense input, was "Some people just want to watch the world burn." I can see assholes trying to make sure that an automated truck can't change lanes,…
>or get to the exit it needs to reach Often while driving i get the feeling im the only one who realizes if you miss an exit, you can just get off at the next exit... Going your preferred route is never more important than driving safely. People never seem to consider this when they cross several lanes of traffic to make a turn or get off at an exit.
Exactly. I think this is one of the most important things I've taught my teenage son about driving.
Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Truckers have to deal with a sort of standard "road safety dilemma" all the time, which can be boiled down to this: A trucker is driving a 40 ton truck at 65mph. A passenger car with a family of four cuts in front of it, and the distance is closing fast. A passenger car takes roughly 315 feet to come to a complete stop. A fully loaded truck takes 525 feet. The trucker now has to make a decision. A) Do I slam on…
> A passenger car takes roughly 315 feet to come to a complete stop. A fully loaded truck takes 525 feet. How does this change if truck design and "per-axel" fee incentives were rationalized[1][2] to instead maximize the number of axles? Doubling the number of axles reduces road damage by 94%. Currently semi trucks account for 6% of vehicle miles driven[3] and 99% of all traffic damage to roads. But would this measur…
If there's no driver in the equation (no monthly salary to pay), I guess the the incentive will shift towards having more, smaller trucks.
Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, it's not like this has happened ever before. We definitely need basic income. It will solve all the problems.
No it won't, and it will come with a few of it's own (getting American's past the bootstrap narrative is probably the biggest single one) but it is a step in the right direction. That being said if you can think of another example where we put 3.5 million people out of work nearly overnight along with an entire support system built on their salaries and needs, I'd love to hear it. The only similar thing I could think…
You think that one morning drivers will wake up and will be laid off? You think that will happen in a year? In 10?
This is not grounded in reality.