61–70 of 192 posts
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> I imagine no one has explored the security implications yet. I bet they have. Especially insurers.
> I bet they have. Especially insurers. Externalize the cost: call the cops when the truck surveillance detects something and have them clean up the mess.
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> What I would worry about are endless number of doctors and surgeons that spent a life time mastering a skill and will just as easily be rendered obsolete by the same technology. You mean, because they operate on car crash victims?
You jest but the vast majority of lawyers in the US practice automotive law.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This comment invariably pops up in these threads; If it was going to, it already would have.. It's too late now. Would it have been a better solution? Probably, but the investment required (laying down the rails, land buyouts, copious use of emanate domain, political greasing of the wheels, etc...) has always been prohibitive. The gains would be shared between many disparate groups that would need to fund this togeth…
The rails are already there. When I drive down I5, you can see them. The reason this sorry state of affairs exists is because truck traffic is heavily subsidized (highways paid for with taxes) whereas rail traffic is heavily taxed (and the rail companies have to pay for the tracks). It could be improved by increasing weight taxes on trucks, and using the proceeds to subsidize intercity tracks.
I think it's mostly a last mile problem (you'll need big trucks to carry from the station), compounded by the fact that most of the train station of cities and I don't think they is a lot of dedicated cargo train station. Also you do not control part of the schedule: you are dependent on the departure/arrival time of trains. And don't forget the strikes...
The automation of vehicles is taken to strongly imply robotic devices elsewhere in society. Apart from more sophisticated robot hoovers, lawn mowers I don't think that is necessarily so. Hoovers and mowers are safe because they are small, light, low to the ground and constrained to floors and lawns. Vehicles, fast, heavy, high, are in a controlled environment. Other controlled enviroments like factories have already…
We don't even have autonomous street sweepers (well defined environment, not allowed to run over stuff) mining dump trucks (not as well defined environment, few things it's not allowed to run over and most of them have reflectors on them) or forklifts to unload trucks (well defined environment, nothing to run into). I'm not holding my breath for automated trucking.
I haven't thought of this until now, but it's going to be interesting to see the impact of self driving trucks on human migration. Today many people feel trapped where they live because it's prohibitively expensive to move. Once self-driving trucks are common, the cost of moving across the country should plummet. Imagine being able to move everything in your apartment or home across the country for a few hundred doll…
They don't want to move (fear of change), and that's a convenient reason they can use to justify to others and themselves why they aren't moving.
The approach that Starsky ( http://starsky.io/ ) is taking seems to be a promising one. They employ truck drivers as remote pilots for the "first and last mile", i.e. the local roads and loading dock work that autonomous vehicles struggle with most. Other advantages include lower fuel costs (driving slower because AVs aren't subject to operator-hour limits) and probably also lower labor costs (you don't need to pay t…
- For one, you're talking about human drivers covering first and last mile, which is a tiny, tiny fraction of the route that a truck covers which is why the Starsky model works well, in theory anyway. That means one given driver can do the work of probably a few hundred trucks in their last mile phase, even if they end up with some downtime in the middle, it's not even close to balancing. You're still talking about a possibly slightly larger market being overseen by a much smaller workforce.
- Secondly, this completely ignores what could be the silver medal effect of truck driving becoming automated; the death of millions of small and large businesses that operate basing heavily on the incomes of truckers, everything from truck stops and diners, all the way to motels, specialty truck accessory companies, on and on and on. These are the ripple effects that many people aren't looking at when they're thinking about this, it isn't just trucking, it's one of the last jobs available to you with naught but high school under your belt that earns around $40k. And that's not even going into how many businesses do a ton of business with truckers that earn that wage, which is usually much higher than their neighbors are earning.
- Thirdly, if all trucking is done from various Starsky-like operations, then truckers in general will be moving into more consolidated living conditions. Again trucking is one of the VERY rare jobs that requires minimal training, pays a comfortable wage, and is available pretty much anywhere in the States where there are roads and people who buy products. If you want to work as a software developer, chances are you'll have to move to Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Austin, etc. but if you're looking to be a trucker, you can go pretty much anywhere and have fairly solid employment opportunities. For now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This comment invariably pops up in these threads; If it was going to, it already would have.. It's too late now. Would it have been a better solution? Probably, but the investment required (laying down the rails, land buyouts, copious use of emanate domain, political greasing of the wheels, etc...) has always been prohibitive. The gains would be shared between many disparate groups that would need to fund this togeth…
The rails are already there. When I drive down I5, you can see them. The reason this sorry state of affairs exists is because truck traffic is heavily subsidized (highways paid for with taxes) whereas rail traffic is heavily taxed (and the rail companies have to pay for the tracks). It could be improved by increasing weight taxes on trucks, and using the proceeds to subsidize intercity tracks.
The automation of vehicles is taken to strongly imply robotic devices elsewhere in society. Apart from more sophisticated robot hoovers, lawn mowers I don't think that is necessarily so. Hoovers and mowers are safe because they are small, light, low to the ground and constrained to floors and lawns. Vehicles, fast, heavy, high, are in a controlled environment. Other controlled enviroments like factories have already…
We don't even have autonomous street sweepers (well defined environment, not allowed to run over stuff) mining dump trucks (not as well defined environment, few things it's not allowed to run over and most of them have reflectors on them) or forklifts to unload trucks (well defined environment, nothing to run into). I'm not holding my breath for automated trucking.