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

Post by treis » Tue, May 21, 2019, 5:24 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #31

noer wrote: post #7

>TuSimple and the USPS declined to disclose the cost of the program, but Frum said no tax dollars were used and the agency relies on revenue from sales of postage and other products. Really? This is exactly the kind of thing we should be spending tax dollars on. I have no idea why people think the USPS is this giant wasteful pit of money in the federal budget but they provide a lot of valuable services in addition to…

>I have no idea why people think the USPS is this giant wasteful pit of money in the federal budget A concentrated disinformation campaign funded by people who stand to benefit from privatizing mail delivery. It started with the mandate to pre-fund pension and healthcare benefits for the next 75 years, funding pensions for retired employees who aren't even born yet. That means by federal mandate, the USPS is sitting…

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 21, 2019, 6:20 PM UTC

the-dude wrote: post #46

freehunter wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when the service fails, you can point to it as the reason government solutions don't work and how regulation is bad, which provides convenient reasoning to strip more regulations and privatize more government services.

And it has a name as well : Starve the beast.

Post by jefftk » Tue, May 21, 2019, 6:21 PM UTC

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #75

esilver wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not like the monitor will be sitting there playing Angry Birds all day - they will be required to be 100% focused on the road so they can intervene at a moment's notice. Personally I'd find that more stressful than just driving myself.

Post by zaroth » Tue, May 21, 2019, 6:30 PM UTC

noer wrote: post #44

freehunter wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't put aside the pension funding politics but still want to pay the USPS more, since the price of postage fees is set by federal law and must be approved by Congress. The reason you pay below cost to the USPS is because Congress demands it.

The other part about increasing postage is that people are asked to pay more, but they don't necessarily see an improvement in the service that comes with the postage. I think about this a lot with public transit too, what a lot of people pay at the farebox doesn't necessarily cover the cost of the ride.

Post by Zanni » Tue, May 21, 2019, 6:32 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #114

treis wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It started with the mandate to pre-fund pension and healthcare benefits for the next 75 years, funding pensions for retired employees who aren't even born yet. This is wholly inaccurate. All that the USPS is being required to do is set aside money to pay for pension liabilities that they have incurred. Nothing close to funding pensions for employees that have yet to be born. Besides, this is all hypothetical as the…

>the USPS has not actually made the payments they were supposed to That's so 100% disprovable, so easily disprovable, disproven by the first link in the comment you directly replied to, that I'm have a hard time assuming good faith in your argument as the HN guidelines tell me to do.