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Watchdog Group Wants Uber's Self-Driving Trucks Off the Road (usatoday.com)
New submitter Kemtores quotes a report from USA Today: A few months ago, the ride-hailing giant announced that it would begin testing self-driving Volvo SUVs in this hilly city, but a day later that process was halted after the DMV said Uber had not applied for the proper permits. Uber moved its fleet to Arizona. Uber cars laden with sensors still troll San Francisco, but the company said it is only for mapping purposes. Now a southern California non-profit that has long raised concerns about the safety of autonomous vehicles has asked the DMV to look closer at the operations of Otto, a self-driving truck company that Uber bought last year for $670 million. Otto made headlines in October when it completed a 120-mile beer run with a large semi-tractor in Colorado. But Consumer Watchdog's John Simpson charged in a letter to DMV director Jean Shiomoto that in fact Otto's testing here did violate the law by operating in autonomous mode, offering proof in the form of documentation Otto submitted to Colorado officials that described a process where the driver hit a button and let the truck do the work.
Commercial truck driving is almost as tightly regulated as taxi services. For many of the same reasons: people who have done it without being regulated have killed a lot of people. And an 80,000 pound truck can kill far more people than a 2,000 pound car, when driven poorly.
Uber's entirely business model is criminal, and they know it.
Long-haul freight really ought to be moved by rail where it causes less traffic congestion, emits less greenhouse gases, and doesn't tear up the roads. Also, it's easier to automate a vehicle that cannot steer. Unfortunately, the trucking industry is so heavily subsidized that there's no incentive to change.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
"Long-haul, on the other hand, makes a lot more sense for self-driving vehicles, especially if they're basically limited to the interstate highway system as a limited-access freeway model. "
In particular, a robot trucker will be less concerned with penis size than its human counterpart. A robot driver, grinding up a grade at 21 mph, is not going to leave the dedicated Trucks Only lane to vainly try passing a 20 mph truck, thereby blocking a long line of cars which could have passed by.
Actually it was National Defense, but carry on.