Are Autonomous Trucks the End of the Road for Truckers?

By Diane Tait

Image courtesy wikimedia

Autonomous vehicles are all the rage these days.  You can’t turn on the TV or fire up an online newsfeed without hearing or reading about an auto manufacturer that is putting billions into developing self-driving car technology.  Even Tesla is now spending big bucks to develop automated big rigs.  With this in mind, the commercial trucking industry is in for a rethink on a massive scale in the not too distant future.  The question is, how will this new technology affect the livelihoods of the 3.5 million professional truck drivers in this country.

1.      Invasion of the Robo-Rigs? –  Since 2017, the Internet has been abuzz about the coming age of the robo-rigs.   These 18-wheeled behemoths are supposedly the vanguard of a myriad of other driverless commercial vehicles that are predicted to invade the highways and byways of this country within the next few years.  The bad news is that with Fortune 500 companies ready shelling out billions to develop these automated monsters, the writing is on the wall that sooner or later technology will prevail.  The good news is that their arrival isn’t necessarily the end of the road for commercial drivers.  This viewpoint is not without precedent.  Consider the airlines, for instance.  Today’s pilots don’t so much fly their jumbo jets as provide system management while heading from Point A to Point B.  Today’s jetliners are fully capable of taking off, landing, navigating and taxiing without the assistance of either the pilot or the copilot.  Yet every airliner in the sky has at least two cockpit crew.

2.     The parting of the red tape. – Another stumbling block for robo-rigs is legislative in nature.  To date, there are no legal rules of the road that permit a driverless big rig to drive the roads in most of the lower 48.  Until each and every state passes legislation to legalize driverless vehicles transporting all kinds of cargo over the road, all the technology in the world will be useless.  Think about it, how would you like to be behind a driverless big rig that was toting a load of toxic chemicals, or a tanker truck filled with gasoline?  Even a truck loaded with 10-tons of toilet paper can quickly become a lethal weapon if a car, pickup truck or SUV were suddenly to swerve into its lane.

Image courtesy picpedia

3.      This Litigious Nation – Just as there have already been a number of accidents involving self-driving automobiles during the past couple of years, how long do you think it will be before a driverless semi is involved in an accident?  As you know, once the smoke clears and the wreckage and the bodies are hauled away, this is the cue for attorneys to start unleashing a flurry of lawsuits.  While major manufacturers are champing at the bit to make driverless big rigs a reality, their ardor may dampen a bit when their corporations get hit with monster lawsuits whenever a robo-rig gets in a wreck.

4.    Automation is anything but foolproof – There is an acronym in the computer industry that says a lot about the current state of the art in autonomous vehicles.  GIGO, which is short for garbage in, garbage out.  What this translates to is an automated vehicle of any kind is a slave to its programming.  If the code that controls a driverless vehicle has even one error or omission, the results can be catastrophic. 

      During the past two years Google’s autonomous vehicles have been involved in nearly a dozen crashes.  Last year an Uber autonomous taxicab was involved in the first fatality by robo-car.  While some of the Google collisions were clearly the result of other drivers, the Uber case showcased what could happen when an autonomous vehicle has a technology hiccup.  After the crash occurred, the police in Arizona released footage of the crash as seen from the Uber vehicle’s on-board camera.  Here’s what CNet had to say:

     That video that was released to the public shows footage of the pedestrian, Elaine Herzberg, walking her red bike loaded with bags across a dark road. The video also shows the vehicle operator, Rafaela Vasquez, sitting at the wheel constantly glancing down at her lap. She looks up just as the car collides with Herzberg. While it's unclear how a human driver would've reacted, some autonomous-vehicle experts who've watched the video say the driverless car's broad array of sensors should have detected Herzberg before she was hit.  Tempe police say the car didn't slow down or swerve as Herzberg appeared on the road. It hit her traveling at 38 mph.

Image courtesy flickr

5.      Is Automation Your Friend? – Automation run amok has always been a touchstone for creating anxiety among the populace, particularly when the automaton is on its own to make decisions which could affect people’s lives.  While we don’t have to yet worry about Skynet unleashing legions of terminators, there will soon come a day when autonomous vehicles will be a reality.  That being said, it shouldn’t be a reason for professional truckers to lose sleep. 

      Already there are all kinds of automation in cars and trucks in this country.  Everything from cruise control to lane maintain technology has been a blessing to drivers of every stripe.  Today’s adaptive cruise control that automatically maintains a safe distance and slows or even stops vehicles automatically has significantly reduced accidents.  My point is that worrying about driverless big rigs taking away your job could wind up as much ado about nothing.  In fact, just the opposite could well transpire where truckers will have at their disposal onboard automation that makes it possible for them to drive further and safer while spending less money on fuel, since automated vehicles can be programmed to drive more efficiently than their human counterparts.  Just like airline pilots the world over, delivering cargo from coast to coast via big rig could soon be less of a chore and just as lucrative of a job.  As for the autonomous trucking industry, it and their products are strictly a work in progress.

Diane Tait owns and operates A&B Insurance.  To find out more about how you can save money on boat insurance, go to her site or fill out the form at right.