quote:

Originally posted by radioman: ...I see little downside.

quote:

Originally posted by stoic-one: Perhaps the .gov should look into lowering the interstate CDL age requirement from 21 to 18.

I strongly disagree. I've driven for UPS for over 17 years as an air driver, package driver, and the last 8 as a feeder (tractor/trailer) driver. Last year I bid a local route that was about 125 miles per day, 5 days a week in Phoenix traffic. This year I'm about 315 miles per day with 280 of that going to Blythe, CA and back daily followed by a local turn. A teenager or even a 20-something that has patience, judgement, and discernment would be the exception rather than the rule. While they might (or might not) see what's unfolding a half mile down the road I serious doubt they would be able to correlate that with what their immediate action should be. The drivers, regardless of age, that I see daily are, in general, extremely reactive and not proactive. I suspect it's the same elsewhere.

FWIW, I'm 57 and started riding a motorcycle on Oregon country roads to haying jobs at 13. Spent 3 years in Jacksonville, a year and a half in Memphis, 3 years in centra/southern California, and have driven in Mexico, Australia, and Japan while also being a passenger in a few other countries. Not bragging in any way; just relating my driving experience.

In order for me to accept that the average high school grad would be safe with a CDL I'd first need it proven to me that it could be beaten into his or her head how quickly and badly things can go to shit.

quote:

Originally posted by tankeryanker: ...it is a dangerous profession...

Very. Several professions rank more deadly than police and firefighters.

^^^^^^^^^^^
You would be pleased to know that Mississippi has eliminated the Road Test for a driver's license. Saves money and limited time for waiting in line.

I’m not so sure I want your typical 18 year old flying down the highway in a big rig, smart phone in hand, texting away to his buddies, or posting on Facebook

^^^^^^
18 year olds carry a rifle and drive tanks in the Army.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I’m not so sure I want your typical 18 year old flying down the highway in a big rig, smart phone in hand, texting away to his buddies, or posting on Facebook

If the big rig driver directly behind my car was 18 years old, I would give him more than my average distance of respect for these trucks.

I agree with BBMW. Autonomous trucks will eventually take over coast to coast
trucking. Can't make a career out of it unless you are in a specialized type of trucking.
I've been driving for forty years, home every night. It would be very hard to automate
our deliveries. It used to be a sweet job, starting with a family owned company, but
now through I think our sixth buyout, it sucks. Management doesn't care.
We need to have about ten drivers. Used to require two years experiance to get hired,
Now we get drivers right out of school. In the last four or five years we have hired
about twenty drivers, all except one has quit within six months.
I'm the senior man and I have the milk run, but when they mandate the vaccine, I may
just call it quits. I've already had the virus. I'm sixty one and I need the insurance
Fuck Joe Biden!! Don't know what I'll do

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
The downside will come when autonomous trucks take over.

Can be a good short term job. They're not going to get a career out of it.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:
Good for these guys. I see little downside.

I thought I remember reading years ago, about the new Hi Tech ports and highways to move the containers into the USA, that were being built in Mexico.
It was supposed to put the hurt on the US West coast facilities, What ever happened to this?

I'm guessing the harder it is to find drivers, especially qualified, experienced drivers, the more quickly the introduction of / conversion to autonomous trucks will be.

quote:

Originally posted by Schmelby:
I agree with BBMW. Autonomous trucks will eventually take over coast to coast
trucking. Can't make a career out of it unless you are in a specialized type of trucking.
I've been driving for forty years, home every night. It would be very hard to automate
our deliveries. It used to be a sweet job, starting with a family owned company, but
now through I think our sixth buyout, it sucks. Management doesn't care.
We need to have about ten drivers. Used to require two years experiance to get hired,
Now we get drivers right out of school. In the last four or five years we have hired
about twenty drivers, all except one has quit within six months.
I'm the senior man and I have the milk run, but when they mandate the vaccine, I may
just call it quits. I've already had the virus. I'm sixty one and I need the insurance
Fuck Joe Biden!! Don't know what I'll do

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
The downside will come when autonomous trucks take over.

Can be a good short term job. They're not going to get a career out of it.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:
Good for these guys. I see little downside.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
The downside will come when autonomous trucks take over.

Can be a good short term job. They're not going to get a career out of it.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:
Good for these guys. I see little downside.

No offense, but only someone who knows nothing about the job actually believes this. You may get the truck to drive itself, but what about the parts of the job that have nothing to do with driving? It would be way easier to automate the airlines. Why aren’t we doing that first?

This comment is one of the reasons there’s a shortage. Nobody wants to enter a field where the perception is that it will be gone soon.

Going backwards, the airlines are more heavily regulated than trucking. Boeing and Airbus could probably make self flying versions of their current planes. In point of fact, they fly themselves most of the time, with the pilots babysitting the autopilot. I think they still do manual take offs and landings, but I know they have autoland capability. But would passengers fly on a pilotless plane? Let's just say that would be a marketing challenge.

Getting back to trucks, most of the necessary human labor is on the ends of the trip (loading and unloading.) The shipper and receiver will need to deal with this. What human labor is necessary in the middle could be accommodated in other ways besides having a human in the truck. Truck stops would modify their service offerings to deal with truck issues that can wait until a truck can get itself off the road and to such a truck stop. As far as issues on the road that cause an immediate issue, the truck would pull over, let the dispatch center know it has a problem, and the dispatch center would, well, dispatch someone to deal with it. When I saw the concept of automated trucking starting to be viable, I came up with an idea for a business startup to do just this. This could also be used to deal with loading/unloading situations where the shipper/receiver can't.

I think there's a big enough pot of gold for the trucking companies if they can make this work that they will figure it out. It don't think it's so much not having to pay drivers, as not having to deal with the issues human drivers bring, like having to lay up the truck for 8 hours for the drivers mandated sleep time (among others.)

A lot of money is being invested by a lot of companies who know the market to make it work. A few companies have self driving trucks on the road, in test currently.

60 Minutes did a good piece on this a while back. I was going to link it, but it's now behind a paywall.

Edit: Found this. They're going into service completely unmanned this year. It may already be happening.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/this...with-no-one-on-board

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
The downside will come when autonomous trucks take over.

Can be a good short term job. They're not going to get a career out of it.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:
Good for these guys. I see little downside.

No offense, but only someone who knows nothing about the job actually believes this. You may get the truck to drive itself, but what about the parts of the job that have nothing to do with driving? It would be way easier to automate the airlines. Why aren’t we doing that first?

This comment is one of the reasons there’s a shortage. Nobody wants to enter a field where the perception is that it will be gone soon.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
But would passengers fly on a pilotless plane?

Knowing what I know? Not a chance in hell!!!!

An excellent video series by WSJ explains turbulence and Auto Pilot which they say is like cruise control. Here is link probably behind a paywall unless you can get library access.

LINK https://www.wsj.com/video/seri...3-92E3-420F-927B-5A4

Page not found.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
An excellent video series by WSJ explains turbulence and Auto Pilot which they say is like cruise control. Here is link probably behind a paywall unless you can get library access.

LINK https://www.wsj.com/video/seri...3-92E3-420F-927B-5A4

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Tried again, still get 404. Sad because it was an excellent article and video.

I read the title and thought: "Well bless their little hearts." Sounds like a REALLY good idea to me - seriously.

There won't be auto-trucks from "coast to coast" anytime soon. Just the thought of these things going up and down many of the mountain passes out west without a driver is ridiculous.

I think truck drivers are like infantry. No matter how high-tech your weapons are, you aren't taking and holding ground without a grunt in a foxhole with a rifle. Same with trucks. You can send them autonomously across concrete slabs, but you still have the solve the "last mile" problem, getting them in an out of out of the way locations, loading, unloading, etc.

Why? That's the type of thing I would think computerized trucks would be better at than human drivers. All physics and reaction time. Dealing with human created problems would be more difficult.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
There won't be auto-trucks from "coast to coast" anytime soon. Just the thought of these things going up and down many of the mountain passes out west without a driver is ridiculous.

They just about drive themselves now as it is.
Adaptive Cruise Control and now Volvo has the I-See.
The forward camera is used and the system stores hills and such for the right speed and gear.
With the automated transmissions all you have to do is put it in gear, let the computers do the rest and just steer.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
Why? That's the type of thing I would think computerized trucks would be better at than human drivers. All physics and reaction time. Dealing with human created problems would be more difficult.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
There won't be auto-trucks from "coast to coast" anytime soon. Just the thought of these things going up and down many of the mountain passes out west without a driver is ridiculous.

The truck has to bleed its energy before it starts the downgrade. The AI will have to know about this ahead of time. Are we going to use signage? What about when that sign is unreadable. Sensors? Every large grade will need them, and they will need to be maintained. Maybe you could use mapping.

All of this sounds great. However, there does come a point where installing enough infrastructure is more costly than the driver.