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Will self driving trucks hit the roads with nobody on board or will they keep a human supervisor? (self.technology)

submitted 7 months ago by FortuneMisteller to c/technology

45 comments fedilink hide all child comments

According to the news self driving trucks are about to hit the road with no driver on board.

But according to this book that is not going to happen. The author says that the real purpose is to get rid of the skilled drivers and replace them with underpaid button pushers.

Will they really do that? What's going to be the situation few years from now?

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[–] abhibeckert 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

inspect the inside and outside of the truck before and after each trip.

This could easily be a full time job for a team of people who working an ordinary 9-5 job inspecting one truck after another all day, basically the way taxis and other car fleets are maintained.

I'd argue that's an improvement over driving a truck. Truck mechanics are paid slightly better than truck drivers, and they work far better hours.

Many of them can fix blown tire or a failed spark plug

Trucks have 18 wheels. A tire doesn't have to be fixed immediately. And I can't remember the last time I encountered a failed spark plug... but even if it were to happen one cylinder being out of action will just reduce your horsepower by 12%. You'd fix it after delivering the cargo.

But again, roadside mechanics are a thing. And they're paid even better than workshop mechanics.

deter theft and vandalism by often sleeping in the truck

Human truck drivers are only allowed to drive 60 hours a week. Which means for at least 108 hours a week, the truck is parked somewhere. A self driving truck would have no such limit, and would almost always park at a safe location.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Yeah. All true. Lots of what truckers do today can be done by rapid response teams, and enhanced truck stops.

That said, folks imagining that they will get to wave the AI magic wand and have safe reliable driverless trucks are in for a rude and expensive surprise.