How badly will truckers be fucked over by automation...

How badly will truckers be fucked over by automation? I hate school and I want a job that involves minimal interaction with people, but I don't want to end up unemployable in my 40's or 50's. They cant automate all truck jobs right? Even when computers take over the long-haul highway runs there will be some options for profession drivers?

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the plan, most likely, is to automate the highway driving, perhaps build private highways only for the autonomous trucks, and have the trucks park at depots near the drop off point, where humans will take over.

They might have trucks drive in convoys, with one truck staffed by a person monitoring the convoy, as well.

Automation is good. it means you will have to work less to afford the goods you need, like shoes or socks.

I've done it and it sucks. Don't let the commercials bamboozle you into believing it's some vacation on wheels. It's work. And unlike other people that get to go home at the end of the day the trucker doesn't. You live the job 24/7.

I drive straight truck picking up organic waste bins. I think my job is relatively safe since i have to make fine tune and quick adjustments to back up where i want to go. Plus how will the bins get loaded.

However, I have no doubt still that my job will become obsolete. Just might take a little longer than other trucking jobs. I actuallt plan on investing in companies who make self driving vehicle technology since this is the future. Hopefully i can make it big and retire early.

There will not only be no trucking jobs, there won't be any jobs left when we are 50.

I don't think I would want to do long haul driving forever anyway, I would be okay with doing something like this.

The problem with investing in companies like that, is that the companies big enough to make self driving cars a reality (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, IBM) are so big that they're doing a million other things. They'll probably rise significantly, but they're expensive and a million other people have the same idea.

I wasted three years of my life in the trucking industry. Half the time as a driver, half the time in corporate as part of the safety department then 6 months as part of the team establishing operations east of the Mississippi. I quit because the industry sucks. One of the largest privately owned trucking companies in the country and for all I know maybe the biggest on the west coast now.

This topic, automation, is considered a dead horse by many in trucking, particularly safety. I sat in on a lot meetings where it was talked about. Here's the bulletpoints:

>1 the bots struggle mightily with any sort of inclement weather. trucks are high profile so even 30 mph gusts can have a dramatic impact on how they drive. any sort of precipitation renders the bots totally useless and this shows little signs of changing
>2 backing is basically voodoo magic. the trucking industry suffers the vast majority of its preventable accidents in reverse, so we spent a lot of time experimenting with training techniques. there are basic concepts can be taught (drive your tandems, find your target) but the only real improvement came with reps. there is no science behind it. point is if the bots cannot back its barely worth implementing them, and I dont think the bots can straight back these things much less 90 degree angle one into a hole. bots dont have to worry about blindside backing though...
>3 drivers are dogshit and replacing them would be a dream. we had meth head drivers who needed to be intercepted by law enforcement to get them off the road. we had drivers sell produce at farmers markets instead of deliver it. we had a driver get mad at his dispatcher so he turned off the reefer, dropped his trailer, and left 40,000 lbs of raw chicken to broil in 90 degree heat...trailer was total loss. if there was a way to replace drivers the industry would do it in a heartbeat just to be rid of them but it'll be many years before that's possible.

If a tesla can't see a fucking truck by it and goes tits up, then there sure as hell won't be automated semis for a long fucking time...

>unless Trump wants to see demolition derbies every night on the news.

I'm an engineer for Volvo and can tell you 2 things.

It's going to take more than a driverless truck to replace a truck driver. Hell, being 100% driverless isn't even on our road map yet. All us trucking manufacturers are trying to do is to erase distracted and fatigued driving from the highways. Basically nothing but a more advanced form of adaptive cruise control. Which is another fun fact. Did you know adaptive cruise control has been around for almost 30 years and still hasn't captured the majority of the market despite it being "safer"? Do you really think 100% driverless technology is going to be safe when every different car manufacturer is running their own algorithms? This has been the number one concern internally to development and just about every company has been communicating with each other on this, but we haven't really taken any steps forward in solving the issue.

90% of the trucking industry is owner operated or small fleets with 20 trucks or less. Truckers wouldn't be fucked over. When 100% driverless trucks does become a thing, then they would only be investing in one for their own benefit.

I'd say if you want to be a trucker, then go for it. The job will only get easier for you if anything over the next 50 years. Robotics has been replacing minimum wage factory workers for decades, but it's created more lucrative operator and technician positions. Adapt.

They will always need a person. Truckers don't just drive. They change flats and handle paperwork with shipping and receiving.

Trains could be 100% fully automated, yet they still have a person at the front of the train. You need someone there for when the shit breaks down and someone has to manually take control.

Machines can handle paper work easily. Repairs can be done on statiob

>the plan, most likely, is to automate the highway driving, perhaps build private highways only for the autonomous trucks, and have the trucks park at depots near the drop off point, where humans will take over.

Nice idea. You just described the train system.

>unless Trump wants to see demolition derbies every night on the news.

Autos are proven safer than humans...

What you need to look for are companies that supply the big companies. Maybe there are specific sensors or semiconductors or something that they will use in their self driving cars and the company that makes those could see their stock go to the moon.

The difference is that every single accident with an autonomous vehicle exposes the manufacturer to liability and there will eventually be hundreds of millions of hours driven in these vehicles on shit roads in shit conditions surrounded by shit drivers. Being 'safer than humans' isn't really the bar that needs to be cleared when trying to fully automate things.

Yea, I agree. I don't really know what the solution to that is. Though from a statistical point of view, the risk of death/accident would be significantly less with autos.

Not in this lifetime.
Automation simply isn't at that point, but if dumbass normals keep trying to push $15 minimum wage it may happen in within 50 years, and that's a big may.
There's just way too much shit to risk in trucking to leave it to a robot in the current year. Not to mention that trucks typically carry tens of hundreds thousands to millions of dollars worth of goods., And the slightest mistake, such as a machine unable to see the dividers on the road can lead to millions more in damages

This guy is correct. I work in the logistics industry. Our corporate higher ups aren't even concerned with automated trucks. We were just briefed on how it is being treated like niche thing at this point and our plan moving forward is to assume not much will come of it. Fortune 500 (208) employee.

wheres these statistics?

I think your talking bullshit.

How will an autonomous vehicle know when some asshole is going to cut them off, or let people merge on a highway?

Trust me, been there done that. For the most part I can tell when someone is going to hope infront of me a mile away, but will an autonomous self driving semi with all its sensor have intuition?

Also as said before how are these things going to be able to put the trailer when it needs to go at some of these businesses?

youtube.com/watch?v=EPmQdGt9_sQ

I would bet money that 80-90 percent of accidents are caused by human error

Remove that factor and you get less collisions. Yes, the self driving bots aren't infallible but they're more trustworthy that some shithead trucker that falsifies his logs

>don't worry this whole thing will blow over soon

Prepare to get your industry disrupted. All it takes is one small compeditor to implement it and prove it's worthwhile and everyone will have to automate or be left behind.

Big logistics groups might be able to coast on their earnings and sheer size for a while, but stubborly refusing to embrace change will poison any company.

OK, but I'm a broker so your argument means nothing. Plus the technology isn't close to "there" yet. IF it goes autonomous it won't be for a long time. As a broker, we own no assets on the road, so I'm not sure how autonomous trucks will disrupt us. You sound like you know very little of the industry and use generalizations to get your shitty point across.

You might be retarded. Driverless cars can already handle these situations better than a human can. In fact its not even close, the margin error rate of humans is an order of magnitude larger than the error rate of computers.

I am a driver in the UK

The first thing to be automated would be yard/trailer shunting

The second thing to be automated would be linehaul, with one or two automated drone vehicles following a human driver

After this, it would be very challenging to automate deliveries on flat bed trailers, curtainsiders, tail lift deliveries etc, these all require a human being to operate the load

Honestly I think you're OK if you have a 10/15 year timeframe, in reality there are many jobs easier to automate SAFELY and EFFICIENTLY than truck driving