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Driverless Cars Legally Hit Roads as California Issues Licenses; Truckers to be Unemployed
Townhall.com ^ | May 26, 2014 | Mike Shedlock

Posted on 05/26/2014 3:15:22 PM PDT by Kaslin

In August of 2013 I wrote Message to 5.7 Million Truck Drivers "No Drivers Needed" Your Job is About to Vanish.

The key word in that sentence is "about". I did not mean immediately, but I did mean a lot sooner than truck drivers and the general public expect. Most protested. I received many emails saying this would not happen for decades.

Many truck drivers thought it would never happen. Most mentioned insurance issues. Yes, there are problems, but time has marched on even quicker than I thought.

TechCrunch reports California Will Start Granting Licenses For Driverless Cars In September.



Come September, the California Department of Motor Vehicles will begin granting licenses to select driverless cars and their human co-pilots, which will make it a bit less legally iffy as to whether or not they’re actually allowed to be on a public road.

The good news: The license will only cost $150 a pop, and that covers 10 vehicles and up to 20 test drivers.

The bad (but probably actually good) news: You probably can’t get one, so don’t go trying to make your own Googlecar just yet.

Stiff License Terms

Yes, the terms of the license are stiff including $5,000,000 insurance against personal injury, death, or property damage. And a test driver has to be able to take immediate control of the car at all times.

Nonetheless, the licensing is a big step forward. Totally driverless cars are but a single step away. All that needs to happen is for California to eliminate the requirement that someone has to be in the car at all times to take control.

A big issue is that radar can detect size and shape of objects, but it does not have human judgement regarding danger. For example, a balloon blowing across the road is a much different thing from a hunk of metal the same size sitting in the road.

Such difficulties will be overcome.

Incentives and Implications

The implications on the shipping business are staggering. A full-time truck driver might cost as much as $100,000 a year. The incentive to get rid of millions of full-time drivers is massive.

A July 2013 Truckers Report headline reads ATA: Self-Driving Trucks Are “Close To Inevitable”

However, the article itself dismissed the idea totally.

“People come up with these grandiose ideas,” says Bob Esler, a commercial trucker for almost 50 years. “How are you going to get the truck into a dock or fuel it?”

And then there’s loading and unloading. Pre-trip inspections. Signing for drop-offs and pickups. Making sure cargo is properly secured. Making sure the cargo that’s being loaded actually gets loaded. The list just keeps going on and on.

The Last Mile

Many of the objections in the above article have to do with the last mile. Let's assume someone has to load the truck. Let's also assume an actual skilled driver has to dock the truck and make the final delivery (arguably a bad assumption).

Yet, even if those assumptions are true, nothing stops a trucking company from having distribution facilities right off an interstate near major cities, where local drivers deliver the goods the last mile.

Why can't all but the last few miles be driverless even if a skilled driver is needed some step of the way for safety reasons?

Technology marches on at a breathtaking pace. We might actually see commercial driverless vehicles on the roads within a few years.



TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; US: California
KEYWORDS: carupgrade; tranportation
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To: datura

bottom line is maybe this can work for cars, i wouldn’t want it on trucks. imagine the cost of consumer goods going up to cover the extra liability. that cost gets passed onto consumers. nothing good will come of it. unemployment. more stupid unnecessary avoidable deaths. higher costs.


101 posted on 05/26/2014 6:20:23 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: ROCKLOBSTER

When you are asleep in the back and your van is in the middle of nowhere on I-whatever,
I guess it will send you an e-mail and alert you that you are almost out of gas.
Oh, but you are asleep, so never-mind.
Maybe it will post your dilemma to your Facebook account or twitter...


102 posted on 05/26/2014 6:22:42 PM PDT by Repeal The 17th (We have met the enemy and he is us.)
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To: ROCKLOBSTER
Program it for an 8 hour trip and hit the rack.

Whoa! You sleep a lot better than me.

103 posted on 05/26/2014 6:22:53 PM PDT by Starstruck (If my reply offends, you probably don't understand sarcasm or criticism...or do.)
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To: Reeses
Personally I can’t wait to buy a robot car.

We aren't getting younger, and at some point we will be unable to drive safely. Robot cars will make our lives fuller. This will be one of major reasons for adoption of autonomous vehicles, as older people are more likely to have money to buy such a car. Youngsters, of course, will not want to hear about these robots.

104 posted on 05/26/2014 6:25:59 PM PDT by Greysard
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To: Fungi

If they are programmed wrong, and accidentally go 40 in a 35, how will it know to pull over for Barney Fife?


105 posted on 05/26/2014 6:38:47 PM PDT by Defiant (Let the Tea Party win, and we will declare peace on the American people and go home.)
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To: Defiant

When robocop shoots the tires out from under it, I guess?


106 posted on 05/26/2014 6:42:39 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: Defiant
Let the elite leftists at Google figure that one out. A lot of questions now, a long time left to sort them out.
107 posted on 05/26/2014 6:57:00 PM PDT by Fungi
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To: loungitude

No way I could ever just trust a computer.

Imagine setting in the pass anger seat at 70mph or driving through a very busy city. I wouldn’t feel so comfortable. Maybe not the first 5-7 years of them using them.

I travel a lot. I would love to take a nap on a long drive. Maybe it will happen one day.


108 posted on 05/26/2014 7:00:56 PM PDT by boycott
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To: datura
Trucking companies would rather pay a human. As a trucking company owner, I know I would.

How much does a year's worth of human cost?

Please include base salary, driver insurance, certifications, healthcare, paid vacations, time lost for mandatory rest, per mile charges and other things you as a trained professional skilled in the industry would know, that I don't.

109 posted on 05/26/2014 7:04:50 PM PDT by null and void (Disarm Hollywood! No Guns for Box Office!)
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To: GeronL

There will be hackers hacking them in no time.
And shortly thereafter, people claiming the car decided to wreck itself, so no fault of their own in the accident.


110 posted on 05/26/2014 7:54:26 PM PDT by tbw2
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To: tbw2

The first time gps or google map fails and it goes through a house, people will understand


111 posted on 05/26/2014 8:13:23 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: Wonder Warthog

That actually makes things so much better; the drivers can end up resting and keeping an eye on the maintenance and paperwork and handle unloading and loading.


112 posted on 05/26/2014 10:03:47 PM PDT by CorporateStepsister (I am NOT going to force a man to make my dreams come true)
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To: Repeal The 17th

Exactly; I wonder how much of this is a desire to travel better, or a desire to abdicate responsibility for operating a machine.


113 posted on 05/26/2014 10:09:02 PM PDT by CorporateStepsister (I am NOT going to force a man to make my dreams come true)
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To: Greysard

It would be ideal for the elderly who are unable to move as quickly.


114 posted on 05/26/2014 10:09:53 PM PDT by CorporateStepsister (I am NOT going to force a man to make my dreams come true)
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To: Kaslin
Even the railroad is pretty much confined to the rails (when the trains leave the tracks, there is a problem.

Would you want to share the road with 100,000 lbs of truck on autopilot?

115 posted on 05/26/2014 10:15:11 PM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: discostu
Computers don’t get distracted, don’t have blind spots, don’t drive drunk or tired, don’t get angry at the other drivers being dumb.

But is it possible to program one to anticipate the boundless stupidity of other drivers? If that doesn't happen, I see dead people.

116 posted on 05/26/2014 10:16:49 PM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: Tennessee Nana

Meanwhile we kill about 50000 a year the good old fashioned way with idiots driving drunk, texting and just plain old stupid.
I’m far more worried about the idiot who HAS to check Facebook on the freeway or the illegal drunk driver weaving home in the lawn care truck ....


117 posted on 05/26/2014 10:33:51 PM PDT by Kozak ("It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal" Henry Kissinger)
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To: Kaslin

Ping.


118 posted on 05/26/2014 10:34:15 PM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults)
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To: Signalman

The Navy is landing aircraft on carriers with fully automated systems, several orders of magnitude more difficult. Keeping a truck going down a lane is childsplay in comparison.


119 posted on 05/26/2014 10:36:44 PM PDT by Kozak ("It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal" Henry Kissinger)
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To: Kaslin

Under the ‘if you know, you know’ category.....

Old ‘story’ in early space days about all the ‘firsts’ and one of them was a human accompanying a monkey on a space flight.

The person kept asking ‘Houston’ what he should do and after 3 days of sitting there observing the monkey do all the work, word from Houston came down

“FEED THE MONKEY”


120 posted on 05/26/2014 10:42:18 PM PDT by xrmusn ((6/98)"Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until they speak.".)
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