Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, May 21, 2019, 3:12 PM UTC

kingnothing wrote: post #62

bluedino wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine has a son (22 years old) who just started driving a semi truck for one of the big 'Dollar' store chains. Pays $680 a week, he's home every 2 weeks, and as a bonus he gets to unload the truck. Not a terrible job, but not many people want to work that schedule, and a life on the road isn't probably ideal.

Assuming a 50 week year, that's $34k per year, or roughly $17 per hour. No wonder people don't want that job. You work completely alone driving all day for not much more than minimum wage.

Post by ddoolin » Tue, May 21, 2019, 3:19 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #58

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #42

"possible solution to the driver shortage and regulatory constraints faced by freight haulers across the country" - mmm, every industry is facing worker shortage huh -.-

A friend of mine has a son (22 years old) who just started driving a semi truck for one of the big 'Dollar' store chains. Pays $680 a week, he's home every 2 weeks, and as a bonus he gets to unload the truck. Not a terrible job, but not many people want to work that schedule, and a life on the road isn't probably ideal.

Post by SmellyGeekBoy » Tue, May 21, 2019, 3:26 PM UTC

esilver wrote: post #66

mijamo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the quantity of work matters at all for salary. A monitor probably needs more knowledge than a driver (need to know the specifics of the product, how to fix problems etc.), and has the same downsides (long hours, not especially exciting job, bad work hours, sitting all the time etc.). If anything I would think they would be paid more.

It would be wholly dependent on the load and the technical implementation. In my view the monitor would be a driver with standard knowledge and experience who could drive if the autonomous system encountered an edge case or for last-mile, i.e., from the freeway to the shipping or receiving facility. Under those circumstances a load traveling ten hours with six hours of loading and unloading time would require two hou…

Post by 0xffff2 » Tue, May 21, 2019, 3:31 PM UTC

oldgradstudent wrote: post #65

0xffff2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Semi's can't react as quickly to changing conditions as a Tesla. That's true whether there's a human driving or a computer. The only relevant distinction for a semi or a Tesla is whether the computer can react faster and make better decisions than a human driver would.

Yes, but so far, no one has ever demonstrated a computer that is even remotely competitive with a human driver.

Post by dexen » Tue, May 21, 2019, 3:33 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #56

inglondon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of when I attended an event in Paris, France and they had a robot bartender. I was there during the day when they were setting up and it took a team of 3 engineers ~8 hours to set up vs just paying a bartender for the 3 hours + an hour's setup time that the evening cocktail reception lasted. I understand they organisers wanted something cool, but it was comical to observe nonetheless. [Edit: punctuation]

There's a chain of hotels (Yotel) that is known in part for its robot that will stow luggage the hotel is holding for you. In practice, the staff mostly stows your luggage like every place else because the robot doesn't have anything like the throughput you need at busy times.