this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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California Senate approves ban on autonomous trucks::California’s State Senate this week passed a bill which, if signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom, would require autonomous semi-trailer trucks to have a trained human safety operator whenever they operate on public roads [...]

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[–] GnothiSeauton 58 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just wait until they secretly replace the trained human safety operator with this:

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I've seen enough dashcam footage from truck drivers being cut off in traffic and nearly causing a major accident or running over people that this seems like a pretty wise decision until the technology matures.

Trucks have a huge amount of momentum, they can't just slam the brakes like on a Tesla. Humans aren't particularly good at split second decisions but I feel experienced truckers definitely have better guts on how to react than a computer. Fully support requiring someone to keep an eye on it for now.

[–] elbarto777 22 points 1 year ago

You'd be surprised at how quickly a truck can brake to a complete stop.

But you're right regardless. It's the momentum what makes them dangerous. If a car taps another car for half a second, the damage might be catastrophic. A semi doing the same? Yikes.

[–] Sanctus 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

While you're at it make them pay extra for the amount trucking just fucking eats public infrastructure.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I don't usually agree with many American leftist talking points, but really what's it with railways being so little used in the USA? When you need scale with regular routes and regular volumes of anything, it's unrivaled.

[–] hoch 16 points 1 year ago

US railways are heavily used. In fact, we have the largest rail network in the world.

The problem is that it's almost exclusively used for freight.

[–] Fedizen 14 points 1 year ago

oil and car lobbies dominate congress.

[–] Sanctus 5 points 1 year ago

You sure are right, bud. I beseach you, have you thought of the money to be made by convincing a nation to become dependant on your industry?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But rail infrastructure isn't that good yet in north America.

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends 0 points 1 year ago

If only there was a solution to that which keeps getting ignored

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Generally no.
A few larger companies do.

[–] baccano 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I thought the Teamsters were the trucker union and were relatively powerful....

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Teamsters have a freight division but the total teamster membership was 1.3 in 2015 and there were 3.6 million truckers in the United States in 2020, so I wouldn’t say most truckers are in a union.

Teamsters doesn’t disclose what percent of their membership is made up by their freight division

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Don't forget that the package division(ups) is a large chunk of their membership.

According to their website "The Package Division is the union’s largest division, serving hundreds of thousands of members throughout North America."

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Dunno shit that. My dad was teamsters, but he was just a warehouse worker.

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends 0 points 1 year ago

Nope. Many are independent contractors.

[–] FrankTheHealer 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

According to the article, safety concerns and job protection

[–] 5BC2E7 2 points 1 year ago

Probably to protect jobs. They are willing to risk our lives in cities since they allow autonomous cars there. So it’s unlikely that they have safety concerns with trucks

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

They'll just go secretive and underground like in that Simpsons episode

[–] postmateDumbass 4 points 1 year ago

So California is down with the Decepticons?

Fuck Optimus Prime?

Bold move.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Sure, wouldn't want them teaming up with the robo taxis already clogging SF streets.