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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."
This development was already described over a decade ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
than self driving cars.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
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.
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".
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
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.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
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.
-Styopa
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?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
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.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
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.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
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!
> > 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.
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)....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
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.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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.
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.
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.
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.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
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.
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.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"