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End of the road for truckers?

I think we can all agree that being poor is an indication of poor moral standing more than anything else.
 
Even for you, this is an evil, moronic, irrational post.

Seems remarkably accurate to me, as someone who has spent some time paying for all of those things while self employed. I sure as shit didn't pay for health insurance.
 
Seems remarkably accurate to me, as someone who has spent some time paying for all of those things while self employed. I sure as shit didn't pay for health insurance.

but not because you prioritized booze, cable and illegal immigrant women
 
Very true - and you forgot a couple big ones - auto insurance and mechanics. The auto insurance industry brings in over $220 billion in revenue, with well over $100 billion in claims.

Great point. Will individuals even need to purchase auto insurance or go to mechanics? All that will be in house. There may be a cottage market for olds who like to drive, but that's it.

Ed Hardin had an interesting article in the W-SJ about how all this may contribute to the decline of NASCAR. Yet another interesting angle. Maybe Pixar predicted this all along. NASCAR may be a bunch of autonomous vehicles within a generation or two.

It wouldn't just impact truckers or cab drivers or Uber drivers or people in jobs related to those fields. Losing trucker jobs would impact people who potentially end up in those fields. Being a trucker or bus driver is kind of a fallback. "Well if this doesn't work out, I could go get my Class A and I'll be alright." It's also part of an identity even beyond how a job is an identity for most of us. If a man says, "I'm a truck driver" you know pretty much what he does for a living and the he makes enough money to provide for his family. That loss of identity could be devastating to millions of men.

I have a friend I used to go to church with. He's in his late-20s, has two kids, 5 and 7. He got married soon after finishing high school. Had kids early. He has big aspirations but doesn't have the time or patience to go to college and get a degree. He bounced around a bunch of different jobs for years in hospitials, prisons, and elsewhere. He was never happy. He started driving a truck a few months ago. He loves it. It gives him opportunities to travel that he never had. Last week, he posted a Facebook video of a sunset in Albuquerque. He'd never been to the Southwest before. He finally found something he loves to do. He identifies as a trucker.

Losing trucking and other driving jobs could be the final social structural blow to men's mental health. Men fill probably over 90% of the jobs that could be lost to self-driving vehicles. I think they'll fill the majority of jobs created but they'll require a new set of skills and may not be as available in rural areas. How many people would be necessary to maintain a fleet of self-driving cars servicing a town of 10,000? Maybe 50 people? Quite a bit more than that work in auto insurance, auto sales, cab driving, auto repair, etc.
 
One part of Bacon's progression that doesn't seem plausible is the "intercity dedicated lanes." There just isn't going to be appetite or funds in states to build more lane miles, special for trucks, unless there is a hefty toll and the lanes are built by "private-public partnerships" like the HOT lanes in VA.

It will cost billions to build new intercity lanes, even beside existing roads that won't require new right of way acquisition. I don't see many legislators appropriating that kind of money for trucks.

The technology is also not yet there in terms of being able to cope with bad weather (rainy nights). I need to hear what the plan is for when these vehicles go "blind."
 
One part of Bacon's progression that doesn't seem plausible is the "intercity dedicated lanes." There just isn't going to be appetite or funds in states to build more lane miles, special for trucks, unless there is a hefty toll and the lanes are built by "private-public partnerships" like the HOT lanes in VA.

It will cost billions to build new intercity lanes, even beside existing roads that won't require new right of way acquisition. I don't see many legislators appropriating that kind of money for trucks.

The technology is also not yet there in terms of being able to cope with bad weather (rainy nights). I need to hear what the plan is for when these vehicles go "blind."

Maybe what he means is that the truck itself is electronically programmed to "stay in its lane" i.e. it gets on the highway and drives the same route over and over again, so all it has to do is brake and turn off at the correct exit. that technology already exists and is actually fairly old news (Tesla autopilot).

From what I have read, if the autopilots find themselves in a situation they can't handle, like blinding weather, they pull over and stop until conditions improve or a human takes over. Some articles indicate that there will be a period when drivers are in the cab but not driving, i.e. they are only there to take over if there is a problem. Depending on how regulations change (i.e., is the driver allowed to sleep while the autopilot is moving?) even that could significantly decrease trucker employment.
 
Maybe what he means is that the truck itself is electronically programmed to "stay in its lane" i.e. it gets on the highway and drives the same route over and over again, so all it has to do is brake and turn off at the correct exit. that technology already exists and is actually fairly old news (Tesla autopilot).

From what I have read, if the autopilots find themselves in a situation they can't handle, like blinding weather, they pull over and stop until conditions improve or a human takes over. Some articles indicate that there will be a period when drivers are in the cab but not driving, i.e. they are only there to take over if there is a problem. Depending on how regulations change (i.e., is the driver allowed to sleep while the autopilot is moving?) even that could significantly decrease trucker employment.

I'm guessing the "driver" in that case would be more of an IT guy than a trucker.
 
I'm guessing the "driver" in that case would be more of an IT guy than a trucker.

the pieces I read made it seem more like what Bacon was talking about, i.e. a trucker who takes over manual control in a situation the software can't handle. IT guys are too expensive to have them sitting in a cab playing Minecraft for hours a day just in case the truck has a glitch. But certainly, the only jobs that are going to be created by this are IT, software and robotics jobs that the displaced truckers will not be qualified to fill. Or maybe like drone pilot jobs where a trucker learns how to remote control a truck on final approach to the loading dock (although honestly, I'm pretty sure a computer can do that better than a human already - they can sure as hell parallel park better than most). The drone pilot scenario would enable trucking companies to cut the workforce dramatically. Just a few guys sitting around in cubicles in case a truck needs help, as opposed to millions of drivers, one or two for every truck.
 
I was thinking someone to do diagnostics in a pinch. That's more of a IT technician with a Certificate or a degree. I'm guessing they could still get a license. Either the trucker gets additional training or this is another tech job.
 
Maybe what he means is that the truck itself is electronically programmed to "stay in its lane" i.e. it gets on the highway and drives the same route over and over again, so all it has to do is brake and turn off at the correct exit. that technology already exists and is actually fairly old news (Tesla autopilot).

From what I have read, if the autopilots find themselves in a situation they can't handle, like blinding weather, they pull over and stop until conditions improve or a human takes over. Some articles indicate that there will be a period when drivers are in the cab but not driving, i.e. they are only there to take over if there is a problem. Depending on how regulations change (i.e., is the driver allowed to sleep while the autopilot is moving?) even that could significantly decrease trucker employment.

yeah, i was talking about a scenario like where you have a producer and customer one or two cities over from each other and lots of good go from one to another. There would currently be a truck or a couple trucks making that haul all day. I imagine that any autonomous driving would start with that...something where the road conditions are always the same, traffic predictable, route the same blah blah blah
 
Even if it's slowly phased in like that, autonomous trucking would be ubiquitous within 10 years.
 
yeah, i was talking about a scenario like where you have a producer and customer one or two cities over from each other and lots of good go from one to another. There would currently be a truck or a couple trucks making that haul all day. I imagine that any autonomous driving would start with that...something where the road conditions are always the same, traffic predictable, route the same blah blah blah

That is somewhat different from what I think of as "dedicated lanes." Virginia (and I am sure other places) have "High Occupancy Toll (HOT)" lanes on some major roads and are building more. These are new lanes on busy roads (I-95 south of DC) that charge a pretty hefty fee if you don't have three people in the car and a Virginia EZ Pass transponder. Adding lanes specifically for truck traffic would drive a lot of people crazy.

Autonomous trucks are going to have an impact on freight trains as well. If the cost of delivery by truck decreases significantly, lots of the current "break bulk" car loadings could shift to trucks as they would be direct point to point, shipper to receiver. With the train, it goes from the shipper to the freight depot to the freight depot at the other end and then to the recipient. Two of the handlings could be eliminated.
 
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