Self-Driving Big Rigs Become a Reality

drinkypoo writes: We've been discussing the importance of automating over-the-road trucking here on Slashdot whenever self-driving vehicles come up in conversation. Jalopnik reports that the Freightliner "Inspiration Truck" will be the first autonomous commercial truck to drive on American roads. It's been given the green light to start testing its self-driving technology on the roads of Nevada. A human will be present at the wheel at all times, and will take control whenever the truck is in more populated areas. "Given a big trucks' long stopping distances and limited maneuverability, driving one requires the ability to correctly predict what's going to happen far out ahead. That requires foresight and intuition that are difficult to program into computers."

Comments

Dupe

[Thanshin]

This development was already described over a decade ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

Re:Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

When everything is automated the humans will be unemployed and nobody will have an income to buy all the products manufactured by automated factories and delivered by automated transport. Welcome to the eternal damnation of the human species; the only species on a quest to make itself irrelevant and unnecessary.

Re:Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

"When everything is automated the humans will be unemployed and nobody will have an income..."

Not true. Eventually socialism will be the only thing that makes any economic sense. The government will issue you a check for getting out of bed in the morning. If there's any human labor still needed, then you can earn beyond the stipend to purchase luxuries and establish status.

Re:Dupe

[dale.furno]

Or you could be an actual human and do something with yourself and not look to the state for your survival.

Re:Dupe

[fustakrakich]

When everything is automated the humans will be unemployed...

Cool! Then everything can be had for free!

Re:Dupe

[Phreakiture]

What "something" do you propose when all the jobs are gone?

Re:Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

an end to a currency based economy and the beginning of post-scarcity?
or
an 80s movie dystopian future where there is a ultra rich, a tiny middle class of security forces to protect the ultra rich, and a large poor class that can only survive by entertaining the rich through song, dance, & art.

Re:Dupe

[0123456]

an end to a currency based economy and the beginning of post-scarcity?

Ha-ha. Commies just never give up.

Re:Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

hunting and gathering

Re:Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

Most americans were farmers in 1900, today less than 1% are. What happened to people who cleaned cotton manually after the cotton gin was invented? Or any one of a number of jobs made obsolete or dramatically reduced by technology? The answer is they either became operators of that machinery, or they moved into other fields, and the quality of life for the whole of mankind was improved by that tech. The same thing will happen here: the cost of transporting goods and therefore the cost of the goods will be reduced, the cost of living will drop for everyone, the trucks will pollute less per ton transported, and our quality of life will improve as a result of all this.

I am a truck driver, and I have been expecting this for a long time now. If I can welome it, then surely you can, too.

Re:Dupe

[kheldan]

Humans need a purpose. Without it they wither away, like muscles that atrophy from lack of use. We can't have a world where everything is automated.

Re:Dupe

[tehcyder]

Or you could be an actual human and do something with yourself and not look to the state for your survival.

You don't get it do you?

You will have to have some type of socialism, or you'll end up with 3 families owning all the robots and wealth, and a state of permanent revolution from those who have nothing and no way of creating it.

Re:Dupe

[tehcyder]

an end to a currency based economy and the beginning of post-scarcity?

Ha-ha. Commies just never give up.

The obvious criticism of the notion of "post-scarcity" is that it is meaningless where there is, in fact, extant scarcity. If it becomes technically possible due to the effectively limitless availability of time and energy/resources, what's the problem? Who wouldn't want to live in Iain M Bank's Culture?

Re:Dupe

[tehcyder]

Humans need a purpose. Without it they wither away, like muscles that atrophy from lack of use. We can't have a world where everything is automated.

You are making the mistake of equating "doing something for a purpose" with "paid work".

I, for one, am perfectly happy to have robots doing the drudge work, so that my purpose can be learning Latin, collaborating in an online world, or designing a new house.

Re:Dupe

[kheldan]

That's nice. Wish I lived in that world you have in your head, I'd be a Pro road cyclist and only have to get up to ride every day. Meanwhile I got news for you, Sunshine: No one is going to pay you to learn Latin, they're going to pay you to do WORK that earns them a PROFIT. We're never going to live in a Socialist world where everything is handed to you, and if we did IT IS MY OPINION that people would do NOTHING but lay around, get fat, weak, sick, and dumb. Work for it's own sake is not something the vast majority of people are willing to do, work-for-pay is the carrot on the end of the stick that keeps them getting out of bed in the morning, it is a PURPOSE: Survival, and it has the nice side effect of not allowing them to decay into nothing.

Re: Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, in TODAY'S world. You're stuck thinking that this is what will be true in the future. A huge amount of profit by companies is spent on labor, driving up costs of goods. If you eliminate 95% of labor costs, and replace a miniscule portion of the cost with technical maintenance, things SHOULD cost very little. So yeah, I'm not going to get paid to learn Latin, or cycle. But if I don't need a lot of money to survive, and I have 25 days a month of free time, no one has to pay me to do shit. I can just go do it.

Re:Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

But if they ever do train the trucks, as in three or four following, then there is less need for so many truck drivers. Maybe it's as little as 1% that are no longer needed. Maybe some become chronically unemployed due to it.

Oh well. I think we need either a negative income tax or universal basic income. This would provide a safety net regardless of circumstances.

An ever bigger torpedo

[gatkinso]

than self driving cars.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Anonymous Coward]

As a motorcycle rider, I could not agree more.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[cheater512]

Wouldn't you prefer automated trucks?

Computers can see all directions at once, humans can't.
That is the main problem motorcycles have.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[sunking2]

The problem isn't the 99.99%, but the .01% where the right thing has to be done quickly. Take for example the small tunnel near me. It's a 4 lane, 2 in each direction. While being repaired it's down to a two lane, with cones all over telling you to move into the other direction lane to proceed. Cops all over directing traffic, really it's a pretty chaotic situation with no defined way to navigate it other than taking in what is going on and doing the right thing. No two cops direct traffic the same way, no two construction zones are set up the same way. Each one is a learn as you go, something humans excel at even if it's a 16 year old kid who just got their license. This is the Achilles heel of automated driving and we're quite a number of years away from sorting it all out.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[drinkypoo]

Each one is a learn as you go, something humans excel at even if it's a 16 year old kid who just got their license. This is the Achilles heel of automated driving and we're quite a number of years away from sorting it all out.

You could reasonably address this to some degree by marking the temporary lanes with colored paints. Presumably, these problems will mostly be solved by automatic routing. Your car will just go around, whenever possible. It will know there will be a delay there. Obviously, sometimes that's not possible, which is why the human is going to have to intervene in some situations for quite a long while. Since most of those situations are going to be at quite low speeds, though, the driving controls can recede in importance. Perhaps a force-feedback joystick really will become a viable car controller, at least for vehicles which are expected to drive themselves almost all of the time.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[cheater512]

Erm its already sorted out? There is a human in the car/truck you know for that exact reason.
It detects an unusual situation and gets the fleshy to take over.

And once a set of road works are mapped, the cars can learn from others that have already gone through.
Ideally the councils/counties would actually have some ability to control the autonomous cars, specify road closures and stuff like that before the car even gets close.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh. THE TRUCKS WILL STILL HAVE DRIVERS IN THEM. They just won't have to drive that often, and they'll likely be paid less because of it. The automation is mainly for normal highway travel, and can keep a truck going overnight whereas a driver would have to pull over and sleep. Now the driver can sleep in the cab and be woken up by the truck if there's something odd going on.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[CanHasDIY]

Computers also lock up, crash, burn out, get hacked, fuck up due to poor coding, etc.

Not that humans are any better - just pointing out that "have a computer do it" isn't the panacea you seem to think it is.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Jahoda]

In the 0.01% of situations where the right thing has to be done quickly, the computer is able to instantly draws upon thousands and thousands of such encounters that is in its database. The computer doesn't panic, it doesn't need to take a second to quickly survey the area around it. Machine learning is here, and it is now. We are not "quite a number of years away from sorting it all out".

It's been sorted, it's been done. The technology is here, the technology is now. Humans do not excel as you believe they do.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Dog-Cow]

Ever fly commercial airlines?

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you are an autonomous systems engineer?

Oh, you're not?

So your assertions about what is difficult for an autonomous system are pretty much based on nothing and you just pulled them out of your ass?

Got it. http://nononsenseselfdefense.com/WIMS.htm

Give the traffic cop a MIRT to direct the autonomous vehicles or use Deep Learning for gesture recognition. The entire purpose of having humans in the cars initially is for data collection. They collect data on when the humans had to take control and then selectively go after the high ROI low hanging fruit until the edge-cases become more rare than a check oil light.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Anonymous Coward]

and the maps need to be updated from time to time also cars may need a big HDD to fit that data in or maybe LTE but drive out side of the USA or near the boarder as the roaming fees can cost you more then YOU PAYED FOR THE CAR for just 1-2GB of data.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[misexistentialist]

Each one is a learn as you go, something humans excel at

They think they do, which is why there are plenty of cases of people plowing into road crews, though it's true an automated car might get stuck or refuse to move, impeding road efficiency instead of accepting a certain measure of road worker expendability. Of course if road construction and human flaggers are causing "chaotic" road conditions there is probably room to improve the procedure

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[David_Hart]

Each one is a learn as you go, something humans excel at even if it's a 16 year old kid who just got their license. This is the Achilles heel of automated driving and we're quite a number of years away from sorting it all out.

You could reasonably address this to some degree by marking the temporary lanes with colored paints. Presumably, these problems will mostly be solved by automatic routing. Your car will just go around, whenever possible. It will know there will be a delay there. Obviously, sometimes that's not possible, which is why the human is going to have to intervene in some situations for quite a long while. Since most of those situations are going to be at quite low speeds, though, the driving controls can recede in importance. Perhaps a force-feedback joystick really will become a viable car controller, at least for vehicles which are expected to drive themselves almost all of the time.

In theory, the orange cones could have RFID or some other technology added that can be polled indicating that it's in a construction zone. Much like the invisible fence for the iRobot vacuum cleaners.

As for routing around, this works fine for passenger vehicles but no so well for trucks. There are routes that trucks are prohibited from taking due to bridge height, weight restrictions, etc.

I still think that the biggest challenge is weather. A system that works well in clear dry weather quickly falls apart in a heavy downpour, fog, and during the winter with snow and ice obscuring lines, signs, signals, etc. In fact, winter also presents the additional challenge of obscuring camera lenses and getting salty water on external sensors, etc. Obviously, Nevada was picked because it presents the fewest weather challenges.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Rich0]

The problem isn't the 99.99%, but the .01% where the right thing has to be done quickly. Take for example the small tunnel near me. It's a 4 lane, 2 in each direction. While being repaired it's down to a two lane, with cones all over telling you to move into the other direction lane to proceed. Cops all over directing traffic, really it's a pretty chaotic situation with no defined way to navigate it other than taking in what is going on and doing the right thing. No two cops direct traffic the same way, no two construction zones are set up the same way. Each one is a learn as you go, something humans excel at even if it's a 16 year old kid who just got their license. This is the Achilles heel of automated driving and we're quite a number of years away from sorting it all out.

Certainly this is a problem in a hybrid system. However, I'd think that the real goal of an automated driving system would be one where everything is automated. There wouldn't be any lines, or any cones, or any guys standing around with signs. If they don't want vehicles on one side of the tunnel, they'd just tell the control system and there wouldn't be any cars on that side of the tunnel. Routing would take into account reduced capacity and cars would make very long detours to reduce the load so that everybody gets where they're going faster than having huge backups. Cars would alternate merge over a span of miles leading up to the tunnel so that there wouldn't be much of a slowdown either.

Certainly that won't happen in the short term, but that seems like where all of this is going to end up, and you don't really get most of the benefits of automation until you get there. You can't have intersections without traffic lights where all traffic just interleaves if some of the drivers are human.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Anonymous Coward]

motorcyclists getting plowed over is one of the few desirable features of autonomous vehicles

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[gstoddart]

You could reasonably address this to some degree by marking the temporary lanes with colored paints.

Yeah, sure.

Let's change all construction practices and infrastructure to try to solve the ways in which self driving vehicles will be completely unprepared for the real world.

We can remove all the other drivers, embed tracking sensors in the road, build it out of special materials, put sensors everywhere. That will totally work. Except in the massive amount of places where it won't.

For these things to ever actually work in the real world, it's not the world which will have to adapt to them.

Who is going to pay for all of this? Everybody except the company who makes them.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[phantomfive]

Erm its already sorted out? There is a human in the car/truck you know for that exact reason. It detects an unusual situation and gets the fleshy to take over.

If a human has to be sitting alert in the driver's seat, waiting for the signal to take over, then it's not a self-driving car.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you are an autonomous systems engineer?

Much of autonomous vehicles is marketing hype, the actual systems engineers are the ones who will admit that we are decades away from many of the things being promised.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Fortran IV]

A very good point, but still, ever read Slashdot?

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[seven of five]

Even if you need a human being to warm the seat, it's a fundamental change to the job. The mostly-mindlessness of it will become much more so. And trucking companies will likely cut compensation to something close to night-watchman level, as the driver does anything most of the time.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[delt0r]

Sorry, but your faith the "quick" decision on a wet computer is misplaced and based mostly on romanticism. We are not far away from self driving vehicles being better in every possible way. When there response times are measured in microseconds, humans can't compete.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever fly commercial airlines?

It's considerably easier to automate flying in a mostly empty sky.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[0123456]

Let's change all construction practices and infrastructure to try to solve the ways in which self driving vehicles will be completely unprepared for the real world.

While allowing terrists to cause massive pileups with nothing but a can of paint and a brush...

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[0123456]

It's considerably easier to automate flying in a mostly empty sky.

And they still crash when the computer doesn't know what to do.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[spasm]

All roadworkers carry a device which signals to self driving vehicles that they can't pass through this area? The truck either re-routes, pulls over, or wakes the human substitute driver up.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Anonymous Coward]

A human will very easily find the cop with his hand up on the side of the road to know not to drive down the 1 lane that is being shared by both directions. It's not just a matter of knowing with path to take - but *when*.

Perhaps the technology for that is here and I haven't seen it yet. Near as I can tell they're still struggling with navigating in situations that are much more straight-forward.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the car comes to a complete stop before notifying you?
Is it self driving then?
What if it comes to a complete stop, then sends you a text message so you can drive over and get it through the rough spot?
You don't have to sit at constant attention, but sometimes you need to wake up and correct some issues.
How is that not self driving?

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Anonymous Coward]

I was recently in a rental car, a Buick, that could detect when the car drifted from one lane to another and beep at the driver. I messed around a bit in the morning and it seemed to just detect the paint or something. I don't see why self-driving cars wouldn't end up with a more advanced version of this technology.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[phantomfive]

Seriously? Have you ever tried to get through a traffic jam in a construction zone? The congestion is bad.

Now imagine that a bunch of 'self-driving' cars are trying to pull over to the side of the freeway and alert their sleeping occupants that now it's time to get up and drive. How congested do you think the sides of the road will be?

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Anonymous Coward]

Who says they have to be alert, or even in the driver's seat? The self driving car can just pull over if needed, until the human can take control.
And even besides that, it would still be a self driving car if it's making all the decisions.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Anonymous Coward]

In my country it is very common to see construction zones marked with orange signs and temporary orange paint to designate alternative lanes and other navigation aids. It is a very useful override even for human drivers to quickly understand the traffic situation. Don't know where to go? Normal markings messed up due to construction? Just follow the orange markers and ignore the normal white ones.

Very little would need to be changed at all, except maybe the type of paint used. Though I suspect that it shouldn't be too hard to detect regular old paint from the color alone.

Also, just because a car is following a line of paint, doesn't mean it suddenly stops following the rules of the road and drive right into another car or other obstacle. It will just stop, same like it would do if it encountered an obstacle on any other normal road. The biggest disaster your hypothetical paint terrorist would likely cause is a traffic jam.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, we already did change everything to make life easier for human-controlled motor vehicles. Would you also have argued that, rather than building grade separations, widening roads, building new roads and providing a smooth asphalt surface, motor vehicles would just have to adapt to the existing infrastructure? Obviously vehicles were able to operate prior to such developments, but improving the road network clearly made it practical to build "road" vehicles that struggle on unpaved surfaces but offer improved fuel economy, ease of parking and probably other benefits, that are not provided by vehicles that go off-road more easily.

I think this is an example of the KISS principle. Making a relatively small, simplifying change to the environment in which self-driving vehicles must operate makes sense if it has a sufficiently simplifying effect on the task of making self-driving vehicles viable.

In fact, I think that enabling new technologies to function effectively is kind of the point of building any type of infrastructure.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[gweilo8888]

This. And doubly so when you consider that the human has to be paying attention all the time, or when the computer gives up / fails gracelessly and control has to be taken over by the human, it will take too long to assess the situation and take action. The only way to avoid the accident will be to pay attention the whole time, at which point you might as well occupy youself by simply switching off the computer and driving. Otherwise you're going to get bored and your attention will drift.

Of course, that won't happen. What will happen is that the drivers won't pay attention, and will also fail to salvage the situation most of the time when the computer has failed, simply because they weren't prepared and situationally aware. And that is one of the main reasons why driverless vehicles are a really, really bad idea. What we're doing is to create a vehicle that makes it less likely the human will be able to prevent a crash when (not if) the computer doesn't know what to do in the big, bad, dirty real world.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[gweilo8888]

Ever fly a commercial airliner which programs itself, chooses its own route, and makes its own decisions throughout the flight, almost completely unmonitored while the pilot reads Playboy or snoozes? No, you say? (At least, you do if you're truthful.) So you'd like to make the leap to that future, would you? Yeah, I didn't think so. The autopilot thing is a fallacy: We're talking about journeys that are almost entirely free of things near you to crash into, along routes that were determined by a human rather than a computer, with a human paying attention at all times and with the only real risk coming during takeoff and landing where the computer is given significant external assistance in terms of its flight path and the actions of surrounding aircraft, and where it's even more closely-monitored by the crew (or simply disabled and the crew flies the approach and landing manually.) This is in no way comparable to a situation where there is almost no external indications the computer can rely on, other vehicles driving unpredictably all around it, and the computer is expected to make its own routing decisions. Apples to airships, my friend.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[cheater512]

If you program it properly, then that means it fails safe.
Naturally the software wouldn't be running on Windows. :P

Not a single Google car has failed gracelessly.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[jp10558]

I still think that the biggest challenge is weather.

Have you ever used some of the adaptive cruise controls like Subaru's Eyesight? Granted, it's just keeping you a set distance behind the car in front, but I've run it through the recent Upstate NY winter. I've been impressed and how well it works - it basically works in 99% of situations where I work for driving. The last 1% where it shuts down, it's so dark and foggy and rainy or snowing so bad it's debatable if a human ought to drive in that, as they can't really see what's going on.

And this is the "Windows 3.1" of the technology. While I accept there will likely always be some situations where it gets "stuck", I also expect you'll be able to remote in to it like a drone pilot to have a human intervene when necessary. But I expect it will get rarer and rarer for that to be necessary.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[tehcyder]

Maybe it's different in the US, but here in the UK road repairs are controlled in a regularised way and don't require cops doing anything. Once you've seen one contra-flow system you've seen them all. If in an emergency there are traffic cops, their signals are again standard and impossible to misinterpret.

The more short-term, small-scale repairs use temporary traffic lights (or even two blokes with a reversible stop/go sign) and it's really not difficult to grasp.

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[tehcyder]

Now the driver can sleep in the cab and be woken up by the truck if there's something odd going on.

That is ludicrous. Sure the truck can wake you up when it knows you're getting near to the final destination or whatever, but if there's an impending accident or real emergency do you really think the driver can wake up and respond instantaneously?

Re:An ever bigger torpedo

[Jeremi]

In theory, the orange cones could have RFID or some other technology added that can be polled indicating that it's in a construction zone. Much like the invisible fence for the iRobot vacuum cleaners.

In practice, though, the self-driving vehicles are simply going to have to be able to see the orange cones, understand what they are and what they mean, and react appropriately. Blind drivers (human or otherwise) are not going to be tolerated on public roadways.

Teamsters

[trybywrench]

I wonder what the Teamsters have to say about this? I suppose it could go either way, if one driver can now do the job of a two person team then it cuts union membership revenue in half, that's bad. On the other hand, if drivers can stay rested and not end up on speed then that's more money that can be spent on union dues, that's good.

Re:Teamsters

[RabidReindeer]

I thought the Teamsters were more into the loading and unloading, and the drivers were often owner/operators.

Never heard of more than one person operating a truck at a time.

Re:Teamsters

[Catbeller]

What this does, more to the point, is put millions of people out of work, and ruin the Teamsters union as a side effect.

This was never about self-driving cars. This was always about wiping out an entire employment sector and piping even more profit up to the top. And yes, that is a bad thing.

Re:Teamsters

[Nidi62]

Teamsters? Are you serious? They have already ruined the work force in AMERICA! Because of teamsters company's are leaving the US to go other places! Myself and my family have lost a good paying job because of unions and teamsters are nothing but GREED! Don't get me wrong in the early days we needed them but of late teamsters are nothing but greedy lazy groups of people!!!

Now, I'm not a union man either, but how exactly do you offshore domestic freight transportation? Is there a room in India somewhere where people are driving big rigs around like drones?

Re:Teamsters

[jellomizer]

Not all truck drivers are unionized.

So what will happen would be the non-unionized organizations will be using these to cut costs, if they are more affordable than a unioned shop, the unionized shop will go out of business.

In the past good middle class jobs consisted of skills that just aquired attention, and following a process. This type of stuff computers and robotics excel at. Leaving jobs for humans to focus more around creative skills, or just the fact that our bodies are rather multi-purpose.

We really fail to quantify the value of creativity (So creative jobs rarely get the status it deserves), and manual labor there is always such a large supply of people that it keeps the prices down.

   

Re:Teamsters

[XxtraLarGe]

What this does, more to the point, is put millions of people out of work, and ruin the Teamsters union as a side effect.

Time to take it down a notch. FTA:

A human will be present at the wheel at all times, and will take control whenever the truck is in more populated areas.

Hopefully this will put an end to one trucker passing another trucker because the first one is driving the speed limit and the other one wants to go 1 mile over the speed limit, thereby slowing down traffic for everyone else. I usually avoid my nearby interstate on weekdays because this situation happens all the time. I remember one time it took a trucker 20 minutes to pass 3 other trucks ahead of him. It was particularly annoying since the truck speed limit was 55 and the car speed limit was 70.

Re:Teamsters

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens when manufactures make products? Do you think they sit in a warehouse somewhere for ever? Do you think they need transportation from their warehouse to sears or Lowe's? No product to ship no need for that driver now is there?

Re:Teamsters

[Lendrick]

> > A human will be present at the wheel at all times, and will take control whenever the truck is in more populated areas.

For now. Anyone who thinks that eliminating drivers isn't the end goal of this (or that we lack the ingenuity to do it) is fooling themselves. Think about it. If you replace your fleet of regular trucks with driverless ones, you suddenly don't have to pay all those drivers $50k a year (or whatever it pays now), and your trucks are twice as productive because they can operate 24 hours a day since there's no driver to get tired.

Mind you, I'm not advocating that we halt technological progress, but we're coming up on a time when there just aren't going to be enough jobs to go around, and the economy is going to have to adjust for that in a way that rewards people who work but doesn't starve people who want to work but can't find jobs.

Re:Teamsters

[drunk_punk]

Hey, we fly drones thousands of miles away.

We've been controlling a rover on Mars for years.

I think it's trivial to outsource the simple act of driving if some CEO can make it profitable?

Re:Teamsters

[sjbe]

I thought the Teamsters were more into the loading and unloading, and the drivers were often owner/operators.

Teamsters are significantly though not exclusively truckers, including drivers but also warehouse workers and various other blue collar workers. Companies like UPS are commonly organized by the Teamsters. Some drivers are owner/operators but plenty drive for large companies like Con-Way, etc.

Never heard of more than one person operating a truck at a time.

Long distance hauling often has teams of two drivers (often husband/wife) though obviously they don't operate the vehicle at exactly the same moment.

Re:Teamsters

[cjjjer]

Not all truck drivers are unionized.

^^ this

In fact union companies tend to hire drivers for local driving. These drivers work in parcel or less-than-truckload, or LTL, delivery. Most companies who hire truckers for over-the-road driving are nonunion

Automated rigs would never make sense for local only long haul.

Re:Teamsters

[CrimsonAvenger]

This was never about self-driving cars. This was always about wiping out an entire employment sector and piping even more profit up to the top. And yes, that is a bad thing.

Yeah, and all those combines and harvesters were invented to wipe out farmers and sharecroppers and such. And it WORKED!! There are hardly any sharecroppers left anymore. And not a damn lot of farmers.

Okay, everyone raise their hands who thinks we should disallow that sort of thing, and go back to the early 19th century way of doing things, with one person in three being a farmer?

It should also be noted that most of us are programmers. Once upon a time, "computer" was a job description. Which we, collectively, have put out of business. What's worse, "computers" used to be one of the few technical field dominated by women...so, should we go back to the old days of women "computers" and no electronics? Really?

Face it, progress happens. And removing the need for unnecessary jobs is a good thing. Unless you're a Luddite, of course (you remember the Luddites, right? they objected to machinery taking away the jobs of regular guys)....

Re:Teamsters

[Trailer Trash]

I thought the Teamsters were more into the loading and unloading, and the drivers were often owner/operators.

Never heard of more than one person operating a truck at a time.

Laws define how long a driver can drive between mandatory breaks - basically making sure they get their sleep. Truckers keep log books that are legally required to be accurate and will be inspected if they get stopped by police. Falsifying logs is a criminal offense.

Some folks do what's called "team driving" where two people in one truck take "shifts" and drive non-stop (this with a sleeper in the cab). Often it's husband/wife teams. I've honestly considered doing it with my wife after the kids are out of the house and everything's paid off. Get paid to see the country with my wife - pretty cool, actually. Hemorrhoids, not so much.

Re:Teamsters

[Anonymous Coward]

Long distance hauling often has teams of two drivers (often husband/wife) though obviously they don't operate the vehicle at exactly the same moment.

I was driving a big rig a few years back with my "copilot" in the passenger side. He was dozing off while I was winding through some crazy mountain roads. At one point, I see a sign that says "18% grade use low low gears" so I try popping it down but it just sticks and we're barreling down this road at 60-something when a safe speed is more around 25. I start riding the brakes, but instead of slowing down, all that happens is the smell of bad brakes. Up ahead, of course, I see an overturned Winnebago. Some douchebag had turned over his ugly 18-foot camper at the bottom of the hill. I'm going at this thing around 50-55mph, it's probably a quarter mile ahead. That's when I remembered something my partner told me...So I tried waking him up.

Hal! HAL!
What is it?
Remember how you told me you've never seen a big wreck before?
Yeah?
Well wake up! You're about to!

Re:Teamsters

[Overzeetop]

"Mind you, I'm not advocating that we halt technological progress, but we're coming up on a time when there just aren't going to be enough jobs to go around, and the economy is going to have to adjust for that in a way that rewards people who work but doesn't starve people who want to work but can't find jobs."

I've been saying this for years (decades, really). In the 1970s it was said we'd all be working a 10 hour work week. Except that humans are regularly willing to trade 40-50 hours a week in return for [more] pay [than their peers] and as a result the number of jobs is dropping. Couple that with the ability of computers and robotics to take over a large swath of jobs at the "bottom" of the workforce and there's going to be a reckoning at some point.

Re:Teamsters

[CanHasDIY]

That's called "team driving," which my aunt and uncle did for decades. The similarity of terms between that and "Teamsters" is probably cause for the confusion.

Re:Teamsters

[Anonymous Coward]

Now it will be one autonomous truck traveling at the speed limit being passed by another truck trying to travel at the speed limit, with a 0.01 mph delta due to differences in measuring speed or software. It will take days for them to pass. :)

Re:Teamsters

[ghjm]

Team driving is a big thing. Some trucking companies - notably Covenant - have moved to an all-team format for company drivers. Owner-operators can do what they want, but solo drivers are likely to be outcompeted by team drivers.

The issue is that in recent years, driver duty regulations have been much more strictly enforced, so you truly cannot have your truck moving for more than 11 hours a day as a solo driver. If you have two drivers on board, you can keep the load moving all the time except for rest breaks.

Re:Teamsters

[bws111]

So the guy who overturned his Winnebago is a 'douchebag', but YOUR problems are purely mechanical, beyond your control? Gotcha.

Re:Teamsters

[Anonymous Coward]

Psychological rules of the road, just like:

Everyone driving slower than you is an idiot.
Everyone driving faster than you is a maniac.

Besides that... it's just a joke. An very old, very bad joke.

Re:Teamsters

[Anonymous Coward]

So..... How does a fully autonomous truck fuel itself?? Who would pump it? How's it paid for?

Re:Teamsters

[Anonymous Coward]

yes everyone with a Winnebago is a douche-bag. Those things really should require a special license to haul. most people who can legally pull a bigass trailer or drive a giant motor home, have no idea how to do so and are a moving disaster waiting to happen

Re:Teamsters

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope.. there's unionized and independent drivers. I'm sure they will be teaming up with displaced system engineers to inject gps signals and pirate truck hauls.

Re:Teamsters

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel sorry for that human because their ass is going to get whipped. The only way to stop this is to make people afraid to ride in the automated truck.

Re:Teamsters

[blue9steel]

This was never about self-driving cars. This was always about wiping out an entire employment sector and piping even more profit up to the top. And yes, that is a bad thing.

Well, it's certainly not a good thing for the truck drivers, but for society as a whole it's a net win. Keeping humans working on jobs a machine can do isn't the optimum choice and it's not something we should want. The only issue is that currently our society requires you to have money to access any resources and for most people that means working for a living, if the opportunities for work decline that causes a problem with the wealth distribution system. The answer is to fix the wealth distribution system not to keep people doing make work.

Re: Teamsters

[Anonymous Coward]

1: autonomous truck pulls up to an autonomous fueling depot.
2: target markings on fuel port allow automated system to line up fuel connector.
3: fuel is transferred.
4: company owning autonomous truck gets bill.

Re:Teamsters

[blue9steel]

Is there a room in India somewhere where people are driving big rigs around like drones?

There will be soon if this technology gains traction.

Re:Teamsters

[Anonymous Coward]

It's even better if the driver can sleep all day long behind the wheel. :-)

Re:Teamsters

[JimSadler]

Paired drivers are common in the trucking industry. One can sleep while the other drives. There are regulations concerning hours in the cab and hours at the wheel but most truckers know exactly how to work their logs to get them more hours driving and less hours resting. Imagine two trucks working together such that drives can change trucks at rest stops. The truck log may show them at the wheel for only eight hours but they are driving the other truck for eight hours as well. The second drivers can also swap trucks. These drivers often earn by the pennies per mile driven so you can see why they want to cover such large distances every day.

Re:Teamsters

[mspohr]

There have been publication and experiments over hundreds of years forecasting (or advocating) a utopia where people work less and get paid more. These would work except they all require a strong socialist state and severely curtailed capitalism. There are some countries which have come close to this utopia with strong worker rights and supports. I think many of the Scandinavian countries are in this category.
The key is having workers capture increases in productivity. Currently in the US (and many other places), almost all of the benefits of increases in productivity go to the capitalists who then drive down wages and increase profits. A socialist system creates a more equal distribution of the benefits of productivity by enforcing minimum wages, taxing profits and supporting worker with direct subsidy when there is not enough work available.

Re:Teamsters

[Anonymous Coward]

...so, should we go back to the old days of women "computers" and no electronics? Really?

Would certainly make porn surfing more interesting....

Re:Teamsters

[Anonymous Coward]

You are not competent to determine that.

Re:Teamsters

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you replace your fleet of regular trucks with driverless ones, you suddenly don't have to pay all those drivers $50k a year (or whatever it pays now), and your trucks are twice as productive because they can operate 24 hours a day since there's no driver to get tired."

Truck stop prostitutes and beef jerky companies better start preparing themselves now!

Which movie will they be like?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trucks! or Solar Crisis?

Inquiring minds want to know...

The first self driving automobile worth a damn

[Karmashock]

It will be interesting seeing these cruise down the highway. I forget the scifi movie I saw with these things. They were basically like big robotic road trains... I think they were getting robbed in some sort of mad max type situation.

ANYWAY... Always nice to be reminded on occasion I do actually live in the future.

Maximum Overdrive

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> I forget the scifi movie I saw with these things.

It was called "Maximum Overdrive." :)

Re:Maximum Overdrive

[Karmashock]

not the one I was thinking of...

Trains

[sycodon]

If it needs a human in "more populated areas" it's no better than putting trailers on a train and having local drivers pick up the loads there.

Of course trans are more economical and I expect more "environmentally friendly".

Re:Trains

[drinkypoo]

Of course trans are more economical and I expect more "environmentally friendly".

It depends on the job you're trying to do, and what your trains look like. A monorail (monorail? monorail!) PRT system has very little footprint and takes relatively little material to build, that's quite environmentally friendly even for relatively low occupancy. Traditional rail has more potential throughput per "lane" (rail line, in this case) than freeway — but for traditional rail with traditional trains, you have to reach fairly high utilization numbers before it becomes cheaper than the highway. That's difficult to do while having to compete with car culture.

Re:Trains

[Archangel Michael]

My car, traveling the 500 Miles to my mother's house, averages around 65 miles per hour, including the one stop for gas. A train to the the vicinity, averages about 1/3 that, because of the stops along the way it makes, that my car doesn't. Nothing like taking a 8 hour drive and making it nearly 24 hours. And no, this isn't highly dense populated areas, this is through the central valley of California. And no, HSR isn't going to solve this problem either, it is only going to make it marginally better.

Re:Trains

[blue9steel]

If it needs a human in "more populated areas" it's no better than putting trailers on a train and having local drivers pick up the loads there.

Not necessarily, it might allow them to get around total driving time limits.

Re:Trains

[sycodon]

Holy Hell...

Freight Trains, you know, the topic of this entire article?

Re:Trains

[drinkypoo]

Freight Trains, you know, the topic of this entire article?

Yeah, you can't build rail just for freight, because it won't see enough utilization. It has to carry passengers, too. You can't take the efficiency of the freight-carrying system alone because it doesn't operate alone, it's dependent on being part of the passenger-carrying system (and vice versa.)

Re:Trains

[drinkypoo]

Right, you can't use rail unless you have high utilization, and you can't have high utilization if the rail doesn't do the job you need to do, or if the public transportation systems along the rail line don't work. That's why PRT makes more sense than rail for most trips, and why we should use classic rail only for long hauls and PRT for short trips.

Re:Trains

[lister king of smeg]

Of course trans are more economical

I thought pay discrimination based on sexual orientation was illegal...

oh you meant trains not trans

Re:Trains

[sycodon]

The current rail service is, for all practical matters, just for freight. The only passenger services is on that money losing AmTrak and some tourist trips here and there.

Rail carries gazillions of tons of fright now in multi-modal containers.

Self Driving Trucks that can't handle local traffic are useless.

Re:Trains

[Anonymous Coward]

you can't build rail just for freight, because it won't see enough utilization. It has to carry passengers, too.

Um, have you missed the part where, in the US at least, all passenger rail is heavily subsidized where freight rail is not? The railroads would love to ditch the passenger trains, they are just a PITA. Amtrak makes a little money on a few lines in the northeast, the rest is just a money pit.

Re:Trains

[Anonymous Coward]

There are about 150,000 miles of rail lines in the US, and only 25,000 miles of those lines have any passenger traffic, with less than half of that hosting more than one passenger train per day.

Re:Trains

[Daemonik]

Your car carries about 1/100,000th of the cargo a fully laden train can. Trains aren't there for speed of delivery, they're there for the capacity/cost over time.

Re:Trains

[sycodon]

Not sure how much weight a tranny can carry.

Re:Trains

[Anonymous Coward]

You are 100% backwards.
Passenger rail sucks. It makes no money, it takes up huge amounts of resources to support, and the riders hate it anyway.
Freight rail is, like passenger rail, limited in route and even slower - but cheap and energy efficient on a per-mass basis.

Whenever possible, companies prefer to ship by train, over plane, truck, or boat.

Re:Trains

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Freight rail traffic in the US absolutely dwarfs passenger traffic.

Re: Trains

[Anonymous Coward]

It's early on in its development. This is a safety feature that allows for people around the vehicle to feel safe. I don't forsee this being the pinnacle of driverless trucks. Also, as someone who knows plenty of truck drivers, they spend a good deal of time in scarcely populated areas. The benefit of the truck is that it saves the drivers considerably. They are less tired, creating less opportunity for error, and they can still delivery cargo directly where they need to, not to a depot.

nice edit

[drinkypoo]

Good job, the final copy was better than my submission.

It will be interesting to see how automated OTR trucking plays out vis-a-vis the various states' stance on self-driving vehicles, especially those which have outright banned them.

Re:nice edit

[CanHasDIY]

Unless they can navigate ever present, always changing construction zones, those things will be useless in my state.

Re:nice edit

[drinkypoo]

Unless they can navigate ever present, always changing construction zones, those things will be useless in my state.

For now, a human driver will be on board to handle those occurrences. Later on, when regulatory acceptance is captured, they will be handled by a remote driver who operates the vehicle by telepresence. They will probably be located in regional service centers, organized into networks, and contracted by shipping lines which will be reduced primarily to corporations which own trucks and hire a manager, an accountant, and a receptionist who is occasionally replaced by a temp.

I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[OzPeter]

If a self driving big rig is going to make freeway driving better for the rest of us, then I am all for it.

I have personally encountered truck drivers weaving side to side, tailgating and making sudden lane changes (the worst one was also in heavy rain just as I was about to pass a truck) - and I don't even drive that much. I blame all that activity on drivers who either don't pay attention, are possibly sleep deprived and/or are trying to make some arbitrary (and possibly illegally imposed) mileage requirement. If that can be eliminated then the roads will be a safer place to be.

On the other hand I also see on local roads, signs that say things like "Truckers - the GPS information for this road is wrong - you cannot get through this way". So I am interested in knowing in general how route planning will be made for all driverless vehicles, as it would seem that local knowledge and common sense will (currently) always trump a computer selected route. Worst case scenario was that tech journalist who took the wrong road in northern CA (?) in winter and got stuck in snow and died.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[meta-monkey]

I think once self-driving vehicles are more common, a great deal more effort will be put into map accuracy and route planning.

And already I would expect a commercial trucking operation to use a more robust navigation solution than a $99 TomTom.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[drinkypoo]

On the other hand I also see on local roads, signs that say things like "Truckers - the GPS information for this road is wrong - you cannot get through this way". So I am interested in knowing in general how route planning will be made for all driverless vehicles, as it would seem that local knowledge and common sense will (currently) always trump a computer selected route.

Currently, the trucks will be operated the old-fashioned way in towns, so there will still be a human behind the wheel reading the signs and responding to them, or not.

Worst case scenario was that tech journalist who took the wrong road in northern CA (?) in winter and got stuck in snow and died.

You know there's a bit more to that story, right? Got stuck in snow, wandered off alone and died. Wife and kid survived him by staying with the car like sensible people. Carry water and blankets in your car.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[OzPeter]

Currently, the trucks will be operated the old-fashioned way in towns, so there will still be a human behind the wheel reading the signs and responding to them, or not.

If that was the case then trucks wouldn't go down the wrong road ever. 2 weeks ago there was a report on the local news of a truck driver ignoring the sign that said "Don't drive here", and crashing and causing an issue.

You know there's a bit more to that story, right? Got stuck in snow, wandered off alone and died. Wife and kid survived him by staying with the car like sensible people. Carry water and blankets in your car.

While he may have died because of bad survival skills, the root cause of his death was the choice of route.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[drinkypoo]

Currently, the trucks will be operated the old-fashioned way in towns, so there will still be a human behind the wheel reading the signs and responding to them, or not.

If that was the case then trucks wouldn't go down the wrong road ever.

You should really read text before quoting it. It would help with the quality of your replies.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[OzPeter]

I think once self-driving vehicles are more common, a great deal more effort will be put into map accuracy and route planning.

I agree that mapping will improve in the future - but in order to do so it will need to take vehicle dimensions/weight into account as constraint, as well as indicating how things like how seasonal and day to day weather affects the route.

And already I would expect a commercial trucking operation to use a more robust navigation solution than a $99 TomTom.

Given that the majority of trucking companies are owner/operators, I am not so sure of that assumption.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[CanHasDIY]

I think once self-driving vehicles are more common, a great deal more effort will be put into map accuracy and route planning.

Putting the cart before the horse, aren't we?

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[OzPeter]

You should really read text before quoting it. It would help with the quality of your replies.

Absolutely. But constructing an argument that is predicated on negating a sentence through the use of an easily overlooked two word suffix, does not enhance comprehension.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[drinkypoo]

Absolutely. But constructing an argument that is predicated on negating a sentence through the use of an easily overlooked two word suffix, does not enhance comprehension.

Tacking "...or not" onto the end of a sentence is an extremely common construct in American English, which denotes acceptance of irony.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[OzPeter]

Tacking "...or not" onto the end of a sentence is an extremely common construct in American English, which denotes acceptance of irony.

I am well aware of the concept of irony, but that was not the subject of my rebuttal. As it seems that you are more interested in playing word games rather than discussing the subject at hand, my feeling is that you are just trying to show off your stunning intellect and masterful debating skills, or not.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[drinkypoo]

I am well aware of the concept of irony, but that was not the subject of my rebuttal.

It doesn't seem like you are particularly aware.

As it seems that you are more interested in playing word games rather than discussing the subject at hand

Hypocrite. I am discussing the subject at hand, with people who are doing better than playing clever word games. The "or not" in my comment addressed the point before you raised it: namely, that drivers might not in fact observe the information provided by local signage. So if you have anything to add, rather than ignoring what I wrote, that will elevate you above "clever word games".

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[meta-monkey]

No, I think they would happen simultaneously. If I were the engineer designing the automated navigation system, I would consider this problem and specify the system only operate on well-mapped roads and would talk to the map provider to get details on how accurate and recent their maps are. Perhaps cross match them to other available mapping data. Then I would preclude the system from operating on roads with data integrity below a certain threshold.

I would inform the navigation data provider of this, and the purchaser of the vehicle. Then there'd be a /. article about how "9% Of Mapping Data Unusable For Autonomous Driving." And the crowd would get all rabid about how ridiculous and unsafe and nefarious this all is, and people would rabblerabblerabble and the companies that provide mapping data would produce the better data they'd already been working on anyway because they're not complete morons.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[meta-monkey]

Given that the majority of trucking companies are owner/operators, I am not so sure of that assumption.

I don't anticipate independent owner/operators will be the ones purchasing the fleets of autonomous trucks.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[OzPeter]

Hypocrite. I am discussing the subject at hand, with people who are doing better than playing clever word games.

Ahh .. online abuse. Almost more predictable than Godwin's observations.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[fisted]

No, I think they would happen simultaneously. If I were the engineer designing the automated navigation system, I would consider this problem and specify the system only operate on well-mapped roads and would talk to the map provider to get details on how accurate and recent their maps are. Perhaps cross match them to other available mapping data. Then I would preclude the system from operating on roads with data integrity below a certain threshold.

I would inform the navigation data provider of this, and the purchaser of the vehicle. Then there'd be a /. article about how "9% Of Mapping Data Unusable For Autonomous Driving." And the crowd would start a lengthy systemd flamewar and meanwhile the companies that provide mapping data would produce the better data they'd already been working on anyway because they're not complete morons.

Fixed that minor incorrectness for you. Apart from that, well said.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[drinkypoo]

Ahh .. online abuse. Almost more predictable than Godwin's observations.

If you won't take criticism, you can never improve. But you can cry instead, if you want.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[OzPeter]

If you won't take criticism, you can never improve. But you can cry instead, if you want.

Ahh.. rationalization of abuse, combined with more abuse!

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[drinkypoo]

Ahh.. rationalization of abuse, combined with more abuse!

Keep earning it, I'll keep providing it. I'm not your parents, you're not my special snowflake.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[OzPeter]

you're not my special snowflake.

Says the person who can't help but dish out abuse to me.

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[alanwall]

I was a long haul driver for several years andthe only accidents I had were less than 10 miles from home.None were serious !
That tech jouralist was here in Oregon and the dumb ass got
what he desevered,taking a short cut and NOT knowing the roads/conditions.The worst 4 wheelers-sland for car drivers-are in Washington state,where I hauled USA mail.And GPS can and has gotten many truck drivers into trouble.Route planning is mostly up to the driver,as long as the load gets there in time.Some companies will NOT pay for Interstate toll roads so is up to the driver to do the math to see if it is worth the driver paying for the toll road out of their own pocket or taking another
free route.And yes, some companies DO "promote" unsafe hours/delivery dates/times. I was fired from 1 company for NOT getting in an accident with a car because I picked their safety over the load ! Truck drivers are like most things in life- 10% are bad

Re:I for one welcome our truck driving overlords

[storkus]

I have personally encountered AUTOMOTIVE drivers weaving side to side, tailgating and making sudden lane changes (the worst one was also in heavy rain just as I was about to pass a AUTOMOBILE) - and I don't even drive that much. I blame all that activity on drivers who either don't pay attention, are possibly sleep deprived and/or are trying to make some arbitrary (and possibly illegally imposed) mileage requirement. If that can be eliminated then the roads will be a safer place to be.

There, fixed that for you. Your entire argument can be applied to cars, pickups, buses, even bikes. Your bias is showing.

Signed, a CDL holder.

Big Rigs

[Dwedit]

But can these self-driving Big Rigs pass through solid matter, travel at unlimited speeds while moving backwards, and climb steep hills as if they're nothing?

Re:Big Rigs

[Meneth]

YOU'RE WINNER!

THIS will drive the adoption of the auto-driver

[argStyopa]

The US trucking industry has been in a crisis for at least 3 years.
The regulatory changes brought about in this administration (for example EPA/state regs that mandate new eco-friendly trucks far faster than normal replacement rates or new DOT rulings that took away around 20% of a driver's available hours per week, ie income) are only the icing on the cake. Simply: the old drivers are all quitting because of the hassles and continuing low pay, while few new drivers are joining the industry. Companies can't find drivers. I know 1Q14 3000+ trucking companies closed (most were Bill & Mary trucking, ie small individual owner-operators, but many were substantial firms) and that was the 7th quarter in a ROW that had happened. Intermodal investment is simply too slow to respond to the waves of need in the trucking freight market.

Enter the self-driving car.

*Certainly* the autodriver will not be able to "handle" a rig in the context of a terminal; there are just too bloody many variables to see that happening soon. But for the bulk of long-haul miles? I can certainly see a sort of 'local pilotage' system developing where trucks are driven by a human to a terminal on the outskirts of a metro area. From that point the human gets out and the autodriver takes it to a similar terminal at the destination city, where a local 'pilot' gets in and handles the truck from there.

The compelling commercial shortage of drivers and the financial rewards (no rest hours, no drug issues, perfect recordkeeping, & - I suspect - better overall safety results lowering insurance costs, etc) all will push the larger freight firms to aggressively pursue this.

Re:THIS will drive the adoption of the auto-driver

[Anonymous Coward]

I can certainly see a sort of 'local pilotage' system developing where trucks are driven by a human to a terminal on the outskirts of a metro area. From that point the human gets out and the autodriver takes it to a similar terminal at the destination city, where a local 'pilot' gets in and handles the truck from there.

The stupidity of this is, of course, such a "terminal" already exists, and it called a "train station", with each train carrying a fleet of trucks. Just look at how the Swiss did it.

Unfortunately, even more stupid is the fact this is not happening in the US, and truck drivers have to long haul from city to city instead.

Re:THIS will drive the adoption of the auto-driver

[DerekLyons]

*Certainly* the autodriver will not be able to "handle" a rig in the context of a terminal; there are just too bloody many variables to see that happening soon. But for the bulk of long-haul miles? I can certainly see a sort of 'local pilotage' system developing where trucks are driven by a human to a terminal on the outskirts of a metro area. From that point the human gets out and the autodriver takes it to a similar terminal at the destination city, where a local 'pilot' gets in and handles the truck from there.

In other words - reinventing a less efficient version of the railroad.

Re:THIS will drive the adoption of the auto-driver

[JimSadler]

Driving will soon be a historic trade. Computers really can do the job. And what people fail to mention is that the shortage of drivers has a lot to do with DUI or DWI laws that keep a lot of truckers locked out of the industry. Many people get one DUI ticket in a car or on a motorcycle but for a trucker that one incident can lock him out for quite a few years. Tickets are another issue as driving constantly usually means more tickets and tickets can make a driver an insurance nightmare for a trucking company. But big rigs are the least of it. Taxi cabs and Uber types as well as those that operate farm equipment are also being replaced by robotic devices. Yet no plans are being made to aid people whose trades are eliminated by technology.

Re:THIS will drive the adoption of the auto-driver

[Anonymous Coward]

More efficient. With rail the cargo needs to be transferred to and from the truck to get to all destinations not next to rail. With this, only the driver needs to be swapped.

Re:THIS will drive the adoption of the auto-driver

[Mitreya]

Simply: the old drivers are all quitting because of the hassles and continuing low pay, while few new drivers are joining the industry. Companies can't find drivers. I know 1Q14 3000+ trucking companies closed (most were Bill & Mary trucking, ie small individual owner-operators, but many were substantial firms)

There has to be more to this. If companies can't find drivers (particularly bigger firms), perhaps they should offer higher pay? I can't imagine their margins are so thin that they cannot increase trucker salaries without going into red.

So perhaps there is another explanation, because yours sounds like trucker salary is set in stone and can never be changed.

Re:THIS will drive the adoption of the auto-driver

[dmgxmichael]

More likely than having the driver get out I imagine the drivers would physically be at the terminal. They drive the truck by remote control until they reach the interstate where the computer can take over, then they release it and take on the next vehicle.

Hell, I'd consider driving again with that arrangement. I used to have a CDL. As far as visibility, cab visibility is crappy already, and emulating it with a camera and an occulus rift would be trivial

Re:THIS will drive the adoption of the auto-driver

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words - reinventing a less efficient version of the railroad.

Being able to share the "tracks" with other vehicles is worth some efficiency loss.

Re:THIS will drive the adoption of the auto-driver

[Anonymous Coward]

It actually pays well but logistics is stupidly competitive to an insane degree while not being able to improve outcomes(freight gets delivered...slightly faster) without radical changes(like the move to container shipping) that only a big giant could implement anyway.

Infact, hiring any company will likely get your goods from point A to point B without something crazy happening.

So how do you compete in a field when all companies more or less offer similar performance(moving heavy things)?

Price!

As such, Logistics companies tend to be among the wealthiest companies in the world while also attracting a relatively ho-hum, average to low pay(unless sales). You can't really get improvement by paying more for better staff(like computer science) but profit margins are razor thin yet VERY consistent(unless teleport is a reality).

On the flip side, if you can sell, logistics is big $$$$.

Re:THIS will drive the adoption of the auto-driver

[Jeremi]

In other words - reinventing a less efficient version of the railroad.

A railroad that has tracks that go everywhere, can share the tracks with automobiles, and has multiple lanes of tracks on every route so that the faster vehicles can pass slower ones (at any time or place, no less -- try that with a traditional train ;))

Certainly it's less fuel-efficient (because the vehicles are shorter, so there's more weight-overhead per vehicle), but the additional flexibility may make up for that. Getting your goods from point A to point B on a train is great, but somewhat less great if you actually need them transported from point C to point D and have to first load them onto trucks, then onto the train, then back onto trucks again to accomplish that.

Well, there goes my truck stop pimp game

[NotDrWho]

Hoes, time to look for new work! Gotz to find me some new robot hoes!

Bummer!

[nospam007]

That will be the death of crystal meth.

Re:Bummer!

[Bing Tsher E]

Meth survives, and thrives, in backwater areas where people have (for various reasons) no fucking hope of anything ever getting better. In places like southern Indiana, some people just clock out. The zombie bodies they leave behind are frightening.

Re: Bummer!

[Anonymous Coward]

Evansville, IN survivor representing here, this man speaks the truth.

Fuck southern indiana and fuck meth

Apostrophes/who said that?/Simpsons did it

[wonkey_monkey]

Gollum writes:

"Given a big trucks'

*rolled up newspaper swat* No! Go to your bed!

long stopping distances and limited maneuverability, driving one requires the ability to correctly predict what's going to happen far out ahead. That requires foresight and intuition that are difficult to program into computers."

Wait, who said that? It's just an unattributed quote stuck at the end of the summary.

Also, Simpsons did it.

What could possibly go wrong

[fropenn]

1. Drive your car in front of a self-driving rig
2. Bring your car to a stop, thus forcing the rig to stop
3. Help yourself to whatever goodies the truck is hauling
4. Profit!

Re:What could possibly go wrong

[drinkypoo]

1. Drive your car in front of a self-driving rig

1. assortment of HD cameras record your every move.

2. Bring your car to a stop, thus forcing the rig to stop

2. An operator at a centralized dispatch/monitoring center is notified, as the truck's video feed pops up on their console.

3. Help yourself to whatever goodies the truck is hauling

3. As you step out of the vehicle, the operator presses the button that will connect them with law enforcement in the region in which you are located. They coordinate with local law enforcement to give them a detailed description of your person and vehicle. The video can be passed off to authorities who can process it for biometrics, and based on gait analysis and other data identify the perpetrator, who likely already has a record — and substantial data on file. High-resolution imagery of the vehicle will also assist in positive identification.

4. Profit!

4. Could be, but likely, you're going to get boned.

5. You can already do this with a truck with a human driver. They're not just going to run you off the road. If you've got two or three other people who can all get out of the vehicle with shotguns at the same time, the driver is extremely unlikely to resist, or even to call the police. These vehicles will actually be more secure than manned trucks, not less.

6. ...and actually, these trucks will be manned; self-driving trucks without drivers are still well into the future. Likely, those won't even have cabs, and perhaps the trailers will also be redesigned to be harder to get into.

Re:What could possibly go wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

That stunt may work the first few times, but eventually the industry will take countermeasures.

Re:What could possibly go wrong

[OzPeter]

AutoTrucker> 10:17 Mode Freeway, Speed Limit 75, Speed 70, Following planned route
AutoTrucker> 10:23 Mode Freeway, Speed Limit 75, Speed 70, Following planned route
AutoTrucker> 10:28 Mode Freeway, Speed Limit 75, Speed 0, Planed route blocked, No alternative possible
AutoTrucker> 10:28 Notify home base, Request human oversight: normal, upload last 10 minutes of video camera footage
AutoTrucker> 10:29 Detected unauthorized access to load, Request human oversight: Urgent, Upload video camera live feed
AutoTrucker> 10:29 Activate dye bombs, Request human oversight: Urgent, Upload video camera live feed
. . .

Re:What could possibly go wrong

[Capt James McCarthy]

6. ...and actually, these trucks will be manned; self-driving trucks without drivers are still well into the future. Likely, those won't even have cabs, and perhaps the trailers will also be redesigned to be harder to get into.

Agreed. It's not to fully eliminate drivers (a false sense of security), but to replace highly paid drivers with high school grads who can push a button with red for stop and green for go. Much in the same way there will be pilot-less commercial aircraft in 10 years to get us around. It's all about cost savings, centralized control, maximizing equipment investment (24 hour run times), and safety (fewer accidents = fewer law suits).

The days of having employees in larger numbers performing repetitive actions are soon to be gone.

Re:What could possibly go wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, because a self-driving rig is not just festooned with cameras and live uplinks and will probably be assisted with predator drones.

Re:What could possibly go wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Already described twenty five years ago in the documentary, Solar Crisis.

Re:What could possibly go wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Oblig XKCD; http://xkcd.com/1494/

Re:What could possibly go wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

What biometrics?

Use a wig and a rubber president nixon mask, or put on some fake nose and big goggles or paint your face with geometric symbols and put on some rubber extensions (like little pyramids on your cheekbones, ears and so on) for computerized "face recognition", so that the computer does not recognize your cheekbones and eyes, lips, ears and so on.

For completely self driven cars roll a inflatable "log", with some metal filaments for truck radars to road. Truck stops. Use gps-gsm jammer. Beforehand make a little work to know where the cameras are (and the road infrastructure cameras) + can of paint?

Work quickly, use back roads and oil your local police officials ...

Re:What could possibly go wrong

[neminem]

Ok, at that point you're just describing highway robbery. What's to stop you from doing 100% exactly the same thing you just described on a truck right now? Human truck-drivers are going to stop just as much if they see a car parked in the middle of the road they're trying to drive on.

Re:What could possibly go wrong

[0123456]

What's to stop you from doing 100% exactly the same thing you just described on a truck right now?

1. The driver will recognise that someone in a Nixon mask and wig is probably not up to anything good.
2. The driver will kick your ass unless you threaten them, so you're committing a violent crime that could get someone killed, instead of just robbery.

If you can't see the obvious difference, you obviously haven't considered the obvious flaws of humanless vehicles carrying valuable cargo. Who's going to program a truck to drive over anyone who steps out in front of it wearing a Nixon mask and wig?

Re:What could possibly go wrong

[Jeremi]

Who is going to do any of this when they're almost certain to be caught and put into prison?

In either case, the tricky part isn't stopping the truck or getting to the goods; the tricky part is getting away with the goods, without being identified and captured.

Robberies depend on anonymity to work. A truck full of two-way digital communications devices and sensors continuously recording its environment makes anonymity quite a bit more difficult to maintain than than the eyewitness testimony of a single (probably quite rattled) human driver with a CB radio.

Trains....

[radix07]

Once we automate truck drivers aren't we just essentially just reinventing what trains have done for years??

Re:Trains....

[Bing Tsher E]

I have a favorite song I sing to myself when some clueless fuck controlling a big rig is screwing up rush hour traffic:

"I've been working on the railroad,
all the live-long day.
I've been working on the railroad,
since they took my truck away."

I WANT that fucker in the snow, prying at a stuck switch somewhere in a switchyard.

Re:Trains....

[Anonymous Coward]

Trains that can make use of the extensive (much more so than rail) system of roads we have built. Trains that can drop off your Prime packages.

Re:Trains....

[Anonymous Coward]

Trucks can go startpoint to endpoint, though. With trains, you still need a truck to get it from the startpoint to the closest station and from the end station to the endpoint, with loading and unloading at each end. For anything somewhat time critical, loading once, unloading once, and driving straight from the startpoint to the endpoint is worth it.

Self driving trucks will make this advantage even larger. Even if they need a driver to load and unload and drive in populated areas, the autopilot can do the highway driving so the truck can travel a lot longer distance in the same amount of time.

Now all we need

[wiredog]

Is a passing comet.

Subject's are dead.

[drunk_punk]

"...driving one requires the ability to correctly predict what's going to happen far out ahead. That requires foresight and intuition that are difficult to program into computers."

Haven't we heard this before- with normal cars. Granted the physical characteristics are different, and hey PHYSICS, but what exactly makes driving a semi different than a car, as far as programming a computer to drive one? I would think that with increased stopping distances would mean farther forward camera's? or radar. Wider turns means wider camera's/radar. What "Foresight and Tuition" are required that are different from, say, driving a truck with a 5th wheel?

This kind of smacks of Unionism, which, yeah I'd be a little worried too.

Re:Subject's are dead.

[drinkypoo]

I would think that with increased stopping distances would mean farther forward camera's?

The long stopping distances should also mean lower speeds. some states limit speeds while towing, for example in California it is always illegal to exceed 55 mph while towing anything with any kind of vehicle. Of course, it's rare to see a big rig going less than 65 or 70 on any highway in California, so make of that what you will. Perhaps the self-driving trucks will obey the law in that regard, and as such do much better at holding their lane than human drivers — who I regularly see fail at this because they're driving faster than they ought to be. Regardless, the vehicles are much taller than others, so they clearly have a lot more sight range available...

Re:Subject's are dead.

[plopez]

The current problem is that commercial pressure causes people to drive too fast or not pull over when conditions get bad. I posted this earlier but non of these trucks should've been on the road:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Subject's are dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

at first it's worrying, then it just become funny as they keep plowing into each other.

Re:Subject's are dead.

[plopez]

in a similar accident 2 days later in the same area several people died. no, not funny.

Not for long...

[Overzeetop]

That's just temporary. Soon the "drivers" will be remote, with the feeds to a central terminal where a team of virtual drivers are available to take over in the event of conditions which the computer cannot navigate, and for parking/docking/interactions. An office of 50 drivers will be able to monitor and control 1000 or more vehicles in service.

That's where your real savings will come from.

Re:Not for long...

[Anonymous Coward]

and what network link will have
full coverage
low lag satellite may be to high?
the bandwidth to have full range live video (satellite out) LTE (caps may get in the way you don't have full bandwidth all over the place)

Idiots in passenger vehicles

[sjbe]

I have personally encountered truck drivers weaving side to side, tailgating and making sudden lane changes (the worst one was also in heavy rain just as I was about to pass a truck) - and I don't even drive that much.

Having driven a large rig before I can assure you that usually the problem is NOT the big rig driver. It is the idiots in passenger vehicles who cut them off and do all kinds of stupid driving around big vehicles. You cannot really appreciate how little regard many people have for the risks they take until you've driven one of these.

Re:Idiots in passenger vehicles

[drinkypoo]

Having driven a large rig before I can assure you that usually the problem is NOT the big rig driver. It is the idiots in passenger vehicles who cut them off

I do see idiots in passenger vehicles cut big rigs off, but I have just as frequently seen assholes in big rigs cut me off. They pull over to pass as I am rapidly advancing which is already illegal, then they take a literally illegal period of time to execute the passing manouver (in California, if you're not actively overtaking, you must stay out of the passing lane, thankyouverymuchassholes) and then they often lag long after the truck they've passed has flashed their lights to denote permission to merge, just because they're assholes and they can. I also see big rig drivers with a dozen or more drivers behind them fail to use a turnout even on flat ground, which is also illegal in the state of California — when there are a mere five drivers back there, you are required to pull over and let them by, at the first safe opportunity, and not just the first marked turnout. And if I see a big rig hold its lane these days, it's the exception and not the rule. If you can't hold your lane at that speed then slow down, asshole. And if you then hold people up, pull over, asshole.

We all already know that the average truck driver is untrained and unskilled, so there's no need for you to bullshit us. Driver training was already an issue a decade ago because of a lack of experienced drivers willing to sell their life for shit pay, and it's only worse now.

When even half of the truck drivers out there start obeying laws intended to preserve public safety and to make the road usable for everyone, not just freight, then I'll believe your claims that the problems are mostly caused by other drivers. But frankly, you're completely full of shit.

Re:Idiots in passenger vehicles

[OzPeter]

Having driven a large rig before I can assure you that usually the problem is NOT the big rig driver. It is the idiots in passenger vehicles who cut them off and do all kinds of stupid driving around big vehicles. You cannot really appreciate how little regard many people have for the risks they take until you've driven one of these.

I am not denying that car drives can be idiots and have seen a bunch of them as well, but I have seen just as many bad truck drivers. And FWIW I've also seen a fair share of bad cop drivers.

Re:Idiots in passenger vehicles

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW, my vote is for the truckers. They drive for a living. They drive all the time. They drive for work, and they're good at it.

They keep right except to pass. They maintain constant speeds. They don't tailgate. They check their mirrors. They signal to change lanes. They are the drivers I'd much rather share a clump with than a bunch of cars/suvs/pickups/coneheads out after a 12pack of lunch.

I'd much rather drive with truckers.

AC

I can just imagine what will come of this

[Anonymous Coward]

Just as great IT positions are getting displaced by outsourcing companies, automated trucks will displace truckers.. this is not going to result in a positive thing.
GPS injection can be done.. Teamsters will be pirating automated trucks.. I can guarantee that. Truck unions have more balls than we do when it comes to civil unrest. I just hope we start to do something soon. Now Radiologists are getteing displaced.. We need to ban together and impede the flow of data or wait 10 - 20 years to see the Teamsters kick some ass.

Re:I can just imagine what will come of this

[Anonymous Coward]

you do that there is a lot of room next to jimmy hoffa.

Simpsons did it

[Anonymous Coward]

Simpsons did it!

what about liability? that needs to be worked out

[Anonymous Coward]

what about liability? that needs to be worked out first before any CPU takes over.

Both civil and criminal.

Reality Check

[factsmachine]

Strip mining companies spend millions on giant trucks whose only function is to shuttle minerals on a private road, from the bottom of the mine to the unloading dock. Until the technology of driving robots has clearly proven itself in a setting like this, it should be kept off the public streets and highways.

Re:Reality Check

[Anonymous Coward]

But they've already proven themselves on public streets and freeways. I'm sure they could do the same on private roads.

Re:Reality Check

[PPH]

Or on the Baghdad to Mosul route.

Re:Reality Check

[ljw1004]

Strip mining companies spend millions on giant trucks whose only function is to shuttle minerals on a private road, from the bottom of the mine to the unloading dock. Until the technology of driving robots has clearly proven itself in a setting like this, it should be kept off the public streets and highways.

The technology of driving robots has already clearly proven itself in mining. For instance:
https://medium.com/war-is-bori...

(from a google search for "robot mining truck")

Re:Reality Check

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just "clearly proven" it's routinely used for the past several years. If you were building a new mine somewhere where it's hard to attract skilled drivers on reasonable pay, which is basically anywhere that they'll let you do open cast mining, you call Komatsu and buy their vehicles.

Komatsu even make dozers that automatically make an area flat, lowering and raising their blades to push as much dirt as possible from the high bits towards the low bits, without ever pushing so much that their tracks slip and they lose momentum. Unload the dozer on an uneven piece of ground, mark the maximum area it's allowed to wander around in, and when you come back hours later there'll be a flat level area inside your zone. No human operator to goof off, no funerals if a freak landslide destroys the machine. Nobody to demand a raise or moan about the hours.

Re:Reality Check

[Anonymous Coward]

This.
Also, boat's that can lay down exactly 2 cm of sand in precise locations while fighting against currents, winds, etc.
Backhoes than can dig out an exact grade in murky water where no operator can see what it's doing.
Cranes that can position several ton concrete blocks with an accuracy of 1 cm.
Mining has been using this for years now.

Re:Reality Check

[Anonymous Coward]

Strip mining companies spend millions on giant trucks whose only function is to shuttle minerals on a private road, from the bottom of the mine to the unloading dock. Until the technology of driving robots has clearly proven itself in a setting like this, it should be kept off the public streets and highways.

You are a little behind the curve. Self-driving mining trucks are commonplace, and they're working on 2nd and 3rd generation models now.

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/design/the-worlds-biggest-self-driving-trucks/ss-BBg9Cmo

Re:Reality Check

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.cat.com/en_US/articles/customer-stories/mining/autonomous-haulage-making-mining-safer-and-more-productive-today.html

Re:Reality Check

[PPalmgren]

As people below have pointed out, its already happening. It also happens on some shipping terminals, a new one just opening up in Rotterdam this year.

Nevada is easy

[plopez]

Let's see how they handle this when they are programmed to minimize travel time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Technology can't help here?

[swb]

"Given a big trucks' long stopping distances and limited maneuverability, driving one requires the ability to correctly predict what's going to happen far out ahead. That requires foresight and intuition that are difficult to program into computers."

I can't see why technology wouldn't exceed a human operator in this situation.

In theory, the truck computer knows the braking capacity of the truck (extensively tested with varying loads, brake materials, tires, road conditions), the mass of the load (and possibly even its distribution over all the wheels), the weather conditions, the actual physical distance to the vehicle(s) in front of it AND their velocity, and possibly even the physical condition of the roads, not to mention the physical geography of the roads in front of them (changes in elevation, etc).

A human driver takes years to learn these things and their skills often go in the toilet if they encounter circumstances they're not practiced in (loads, trailer types, surface conditions, geography).

My Volvo has distance sensing cruise control and I've driven in blizzards where the distance sensing cruise could do a better job than I could in sensing the distance to the car in front of me. I fail to see how more/newer/better versions of this wouldn't be a benefit to trucks.

Re:Teamsterst

[maestroX]

Hopefully this will put an end to one trucker passing another trucker because the first one is driving the speed limit and the other one wants to go 1 mile over the

The trucks are rev- and/or speed limited (at least here) to 55 mph.
It's just like Tour de France, truckers lurk in each other's jetstream, because it's easier and economical to drive next.
To change heads, the truck needs to overtake without the tail losing momentum.
I doubt a computer would do it more efficient, a train will.

We just have to enforce the laws in the books.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

There are tons of unenforced traffic laws. Just enforce them to take care of these behemoths.

All horseless carriages must be preceded by a flagman on foot, it shall come to a full and complete stop at every cross road, ring a bell, set off a fire cracker before proceeding further. Such horseless carriages should also have a fake horse head/neck mounted so as not to frighten horses.

Yet another job to be taken

[Anonymous Coward]

As a former truck driver I find this rather sickening, ANOTHER JOB that will eventually be taken away, going to be a while atleast.

Optimus Prime

[Anonymous Coward]

Here he comes to save us all

way too much credit to truck drivers

[razholio]

FTA: "driving one requires the ability to correctly predict what's going to happen far out ahead." ...or you just say 'fuckit' and tailgate passenger cars at = 1 car-length, cut in front of passenger cars at the same distance, pass other trucks on a 4lane highway with a speed delta of ~1mph and probably wonder why most cars do whatever they can to get as far away from you as possible on the stretch of I-40 between Gallup and Albuquerque, NM.

Horrible Movies

[Anonymous Coward]

I see some horrible movies being made over this concept in the near future. "The robot truck with the radioactive waste is sentient and headed straight towards the White House!" "But that is where the President lives!"

Interesting comments

[Anonymous Coward]

There are quite a few interesting comments to this piece of news. First, there are many more Luddites in this forum than I expected. Second, some people seems to be terrified about the prospect of not having a job to go to, in a hypothetical situation in which a job is not necessary for living. Amazing.

The future's still a long ways off

[shadowrat]

You'd think if autonomous vehicles could be 100% solved on any platform, it would be trains. You don't have to worry about steering to maintain the course. You only have one variable to adjust, your speed. In fact, automated trains are found all over. They have been around since the 60s. Yet we still live in a world where people drive trains!

Good luck getting those automated semi trucks out there.

Re:The future's still a long ways off

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about other places, but they have an insane union.

Those Conductors guys on metra Trains who clip tickets get VERY high salaries.

I suspect that the actual cost of personnel to control/ride on trains is very small compared to the staff that maintains them. 1 driver for 200+ people is barely worth automating if that person doubles as security or an extra set of eyes.

Not to mention on-site repair....as an I.T. person I do alot of field engineering.....sometimes you need some hands on the ground who are trained. Trains are big mechanical beasts....I'm sure crap needs a physical adjustment all the damn time.

 

Amazing!

[JustNiz]

I for one welcome the opportuniy for big corps to save money by reducing the need to hire skilled drivers to control the 40 tons of metal travelling at 60+MPH sometimes inches away from other cars. What could possibly go wrong!

What's that ahead?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was driving in Nevada one dark, moonless night, when out of nowhere came a cow in the middle of the road... I'd like to see how an autonomous vehicle would deal with that.

Re:What's that ahead?

[ColdWetDog]

I was driving in Nevada one dark, moonless night, when out of nowhere came a cow in the middle of the road... I'd like to see how an autonomous vehicle would deal with that.

Hamburger.

Re:What's that ahead?

[drinkypoo]

I was driving in Nevada one dark, moonless night, when out of nowhere came a cow in the middle of the road... I'd like to see how an autonomous vehicle would deal with that.

That's out of nowhere to you, but the computer is going to be able to see in the dark far outside the range of your headlights. Its headlights are going to be a convenience to other drivers, and an IR source for its night vision — which will have automatic gain control far outside the range of your pupils. It'll also likely have radar and lidar so even if it can't see the cow, it'll know it's there.

New name for an old technology

[edtice1559]

We used to call self-driving big-rigs freight trains. Okay it took one or two people to operate the whole fleet, but basically solved the same problems.

Re:Teamsterst

[Anonymous Coward]

Automated trucks drive in platoons. The front truck (for now) has a human driver. The remaining trucks follow, with just a few metres between them, maximising the fuel efficiency for the whole platoon. Whenever the front truck slows, those following slow simultaneously, they can do this because they're radio linked. Humans driving in a convoy will crash if they attempt this close spacing because they add too much latency and too much latency jitter which the small distances can't absorb. So a human convoy uses greater spacing, which reduces the fuel saving compared to the computerised platoons.

It's been demonstrated on public highways under controlled conditions already.

So yeah, the computer is more efficient. But you are correct that a train beats even a computerised truck platoon, if you want to move enough goods to the same place and you already own a railway line.

Future Job Opening

[CanadianMacFan]

Well, once the driver/overseer is gone then there will be job opening up because of this. The full service gas station will come back!

Re:Future Job Opening

[drinkypoo]

The full service gas station will come back!

For a moment. Then someone will invent a better fuel cap for robots to grasp, and then there will be a brief flurry in gas cap retrofit work.

Reporting Bias

[jklovanc]

Sure there are some very bad truck drivers but I bet that the great majority of truck drivers are very good. The issue is that every time someone sees a bonehead truck driver the following happens;
1. The incident is stuck in our heads and stays add to the "bone head driver" tally.
2. We tell friends which stick it in their heads and updates their counters too.

What happens when a bone head truck driver is on the news? Thousands of counters are updated. Have you ever remembered or told a friend about a truck that was driven correctly? We don't count the number of good truck drivers just the bad ones. This leads to the perception that many truck drivers are bone heads when in reality it might be only a few.

The Mad Max Game

[ThatsNotPudding]

Every year, they should host a competition for all comers to try and distract, disable, or destroy a sand-filled autonomous tanker truck. Self-fund it through pay per view.

Oh, BS buddy

[ThatsNotPudding]

new DOT rulings that took away around 20% of a driver's available hours per week, ie income

Rather: ie, taking away their ability to kill themselves AND OTHERS due to sleep deprivation.

Sheesh; Conservatives love a body count for profits.

rearrange the roads

[bugs2squash]

Roads could be better laid out to separate nose-to-tail convoys of self-driving trucks from other road users. It always seems to snarl up the whole highway when one truck takes 10 minutes to overtake another. If they could all move along with shared engine capacity that could probably be eliminated.

If they moved the lane barriers around they might create a single central lane that is used for self-driving trucks, have each section run one way for some period and reverse it for the next period. Have the sections end at convenient marshaling points for interconnection to other transport / big cities, intersecting highways etc. or to drop in drivers for local deliveries.

Leave the rest of the road for human drivers

Weather

[jklovanc]

When they can get things to work correctly in snow and heavy rain then we can think about driverless trucks. I doubt that a trucking system that only works in good weather would be viable.

Long haul trucking should be done on trains

[Anonymous Coward]

Just put the trailer on a flatcar. Have a truck pick it up in the destination city and drive it to its local destination. Incentivize this by increasing truck weight taxes on freeways and using the monies generated to subsidize freight trains.

Foresight and intuition.

[Kaenneth]

Example, while driving home today, a bird flew low in front on my car, so I immediately slammed on my brakes.

Not for the bird, but for the kid being pulled into the street by the dog he was walking that started to chase the bird, that I predicted by being aware of the situation, knowledge of Labrador behavior, and the mass ratio of the dog and kid.

I 're'acted before the real hazard started moving, before child detecting radar could have.

Re:Foresight and intuition.

[Anonymous Coward]

I 're'acted before the real hazard started moving, before child detecting radar could have.

No, you didn't. An automated car would have detected the kid from your (probably made-up) story, calculated that his path would intersect with the its own, and initiated a gradual stop well before the situation registered in your mind.

The evidence for this lies in the fact that you say you "slammed" on your brakes. An automated car wouldn't have needed to.

what a fun hack

[ozduo]

the hijack or mayhem possibilities are endless, hope they use a secure OS like windows!

Re:what a fun hack

[Anonymous Coward]

You literally believe hacking works the way it does on TV.

Re:what a fun hack

[ozduo]

Yeah! Next you will tell me there is no tooth fairy but why does your father prance around in a pink tutu!

Great news!

[RalphSlate]

This is wonderful, just as the market is supposed to work. Now that will free up all the truck drivers to do more productive work. Society will move forward!

When someone can figure out just what that work will be, let us all know.

Good...

[Anonymous Coward]

Truckers are far too often idiots. If we can get those clowns off the road, we'll all be in better shape.

People see the shape, not the weight

[PPalmgren]

A lot of people seem to think trucks house 3000hp engines and have the same level of acceleration as cars. Well..they're close to cars...when empty. Of course, a truck can weigh six to ten times heavier depending on its cargo, and the way you drive is singificantly different in these situations. Since a normal driver can't see the weight of the truck's cargo and truck signals give no indication of acceleration/stopping distance, this leads people to treat empty and full trucks the same way. I'm more observant of it because I work for a shipping company, but most people pay no mind.

Fully laden (40 Tonnes) truck braking demo

[Lovepump]

Trucks don't need to have terrible braking distances...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

What could possibly go wrong?

[nessman]

Just take a truck with a full hazmat load, and set it loose on I-95 in New Jersey. What could possibly go wrong?