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