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.
When I see them haul a load of logs out of Pecwan I will believe it.
Driverless cars, or driverless trucks, on any type of large scale.....are not going to happen.
There a large differences between the world of Google (computers, software, internet) and the world of automobiles.
Cars have had computers for a very long time...and they hardly ever fail. This is because the automotive industry (and the automotive consumer) have a very different expectation of their car’s reliability, vs their web browser’s. My Android phone locks up a few times a month...I take the battery out and restart. If my car did this - time for a new car.
Companies like Google will NEVER meet an automotive consumer’s expectation. Nor will Tesla, which has described their product as more software than car. To an IT guy, they think that’s a good thing to boast about. To most of us, it most certainly is not.
Now on to the concept of the driverless car. It uses LIDAR. I am very familiar with LIDAR, and use it at work...so I am no luddite. I am also aware of how much LIDAR costs...a lot. Google claims $70k...which I think is a lowball estimate. Mobile LIDAR starts at $250k. And then there are laser rangefinders and of course, software. And there’s got to be a large computer on board - LIDAR creates huge files, that bog down conventional computers.
So its expensive. Is it effective? I’d love to see how it reacts to a blowout on the interstate, an engine fire, seized brake, etc. I suspect serious shortcomings.
Trucking industry? It boggles my mind to contemplate how a driverless truck could enter a factory, weigh in, find the right spot to dock, open its own doors or take its own tarp off, weigh out, inspect itself for proper lights and tires, and refuel itself, before getting back on the road.
Or what about a truck with multiple deliveries...who installs load locks...who keeps client #1 from pilfering some of client #2’s delivery?
I’m sure a system that overcomes all of these problems is technically possible...but not reasonably cost effective at all.
What an opportunity for computer hackers.
Can you imagine someone hacking into the network controlling the car or the wifi used to link it to whatever.
It would be like the Grand Theft Auto video game to them.
The roads are already dangerous. People shouldn't expect perfection.
Roads Must Roll
What could possibly go wrong?
I have a 2014 Jeep Cherokee. It can drive on the freeway by itself a ways (lane control, adaptive cruise control). I drove from Truckee (past the inspection station) to Roseville without touching the brake or accelerator. It just occured to me that if it was red in color I could have named it “Redskin”.
Which of those means of transportation mentioned does NOT have a driver?
They’ll be following at a safe distance and will see the object.
Just like most large passenger aircraft fly today (for 98 percent of the trip).;
Only computers that talk to the outside world can get hacked. Self contained systems are... well self contained.
Don’t get angry???
How about Dennis Weaver vs truck in Duel
And Christine?
Garbage men, circa 1990. "I'll always have a job. Who's going to lift those cans into the truck but us?"
There’s no reason for it to be all or none. Doesn’t matter if the people are slower, collision avoidance is collision avoidance, the methods are the same, and having one side react faster just makes the accident easier to avoid. And frankly the way moving cars respond to input negates most of the computer’s “advantage”.
Machines do grey just fine. People won’t die, they’ll live because the computer driven cars will be better than the human driven cars at not killing people.
Blowouts and breakdowns will be handled the same by a computer as a person, pull over and stop, it ain’t complicated. We already HAVE the tech IN cars right now to do this, the delay right now is our laws and acceptance.
There was a driver in the truck. And Christine was possessed.
Aviation has autopilot.
Actually they already ARE happening. Strip mining is now done almost entirely by automated vehicles. And we have cars that park themselves, and cars that avoid collisions for you. The only thing delaying self driving cars in mass production now is us, we still aren’t willing to admit the world we already live in.
No network control. That’s how we always thought it was going to be done, but the current drive shows it’s unnecessary. Our cars are already driving themselves.
Not to worry. I think they hired a lot of the talented programmers who brought us obamacare. What could possibly go wrong?
Malaysia Airline MH370
:>)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
