Comment on Will self driving trucks hit the roads with nobody on board or will they keep a human supervisor?
MajorHavoc@programming.dev 1 month agoThe tricky part is that a truck is an incredibly expensive piece of equipment, and it needs a lot of maintenance.
Professional truckers drive, yes.
But they also inspect the inside and outside of the truck before and after each trip. Many of them deter theft and validation vandalism by often sleeping in the truck. Many of them can fix blown tire or a failed spark plug without outside assistance.
It’ll be lovely but to have to do the actual driving, but owners who think that’s the only skill that a professional trucker brings are in for a nasty shock if they immediately swap to untrained staff.
Once the trucks can drive themselves, a lot of the rest of what a trucker does can probably be done by fewer people, with the right coordination, resources and planning. But that’s going to take a lot of effort, and it’s going to have to be effort from actual truckers who know that they’re doing.
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This could easily be a full time job for a team of people who working an ordinary 9-5 job inspecting one truck after another all day, basically the way taxis and other car fleets are maintained.
I’d argue that’s an improvement over driving a truck. Truck mechanics are paid slightly better than truck drivers, and they work far better hours.
Trucks have 18 wheels. A tire doesn’t have to be fixed immediately. And I can’t remember the last time I encountered a failed spark plug… but even if it were to happen one cylinder being out of action will just reduce your horsepower by 12%. You’d fix it after delivering the cargo.
But again, roadside mechanics are a thing. And they’re paid even better than workshop mechanics.
Human truck drivers are only allowed to work 60 hours a week. Which means for at least 108 hours a week, the truck is parked somewhere. A self driving truck would have no such limit, and would only ever park at a safe location (e.g. a mechanic’s workshop).
MajorHavoc@programming.dev 1 month ago
Yeah. All true. Lots of what truckers do today can be done by rapid response teams, and enhanced truck stops.
That said, folks imagining that they will get to wave the AI magic wand and have safe reliable driverless trucks are in for a rude and expensive surprise.