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Something else that I haven't seen brought up- although I've scanned the posts of the thread I haven't read them all- is how dramatically autonomous vehicles will affect one industry in particular; Trucking. After taxicab drivers, and eventually Uber drivers, the next big wave of obsolete jobs will be truck drivers, and as they number 3.5 million this is no small thing to those now employed in the industry. As it is already a heavily regulated industry I imagine it won't be too difficult to layer on autonomous driving truck rules to it.
It sounds scary to have computer driven 100,000lb vehicle barreling down the highway until you consider that massive jets are mostly autonomous, and with embedded sensors in and around roadways layered over the array of sensors in each truck I imagine it will actually work quite well.
I can offer some insight into this, having worked for several trucking lines as a dispatcher, and still following the industry.
It might be noted first that the industry, including the drivers, doesn't see the prospect of self-driving vehicles as much of a threat; nor does the prospect of huge savings on labor have them licking their chops. They seem to feel, as I do, that there are far too many input factors -- weather being merely the most prominent -- that would make the technology very difficult to adapt to everyday operation.
As I pointed out in an earlier post, conditions within a fenced-in terminal and storage yard would appear to be perfect for testing an autonomous "jockey horse" for spotting trailers at dock doors or moving then to specific locations in the yard, presumably defined in a grid or herringbone pattern. But I've seen very little enthusiasm in the trade press as yet.
And it might be worth mentioning that most of the major toll roads have special provisions for special loads -- either two full-size (40' to 53') trailers moved as one (known as a "train" within the industry), or "high-and-wides" or hazardous materials, The Pennsylvania Turnpike is an exception to this -- mostly because of its tunnels, but I suspect the grades and curves might also be a factor.
So it will be interesting to watch this story unfold, but I don't expect it to be anywhere close to something its proponents are expecting.
Something else that I haven't seen brought up- although I've scanned the posts of the thread I haven't read them all- is how dramatically autonomous vehicles will affect one industry in particular; Trucking. After taxicab drivers, and eventually Uber drivers, the next big wave of obsolete jobs will be truck drivers, and as they number 3.5 million this is no small thing to those now employed in the industry. As it is already a heavily regulated industry I imagine it won't be too difficult to layer on autonomous driving truck rules to it.
I foresee autonomous freight truck transport to actually make a much earlier presence than the widespread adoption of private autonomous driving cars. The trucks will all talk with one another and hook up as virtual trains staying in the proper lanes, being able to discern signals and brakes to safely allow cars to merge within them as necessary and freight companies will benefit from having exacting time schedules and communicative trucks letting them know exactly what's going on and expected delivery ETAs. It will make driving in the highways much safer, and I say this knowing that your average truck driver is much more skilled than your average car driver, but autonomous trucks will drive super conservative while maintaining speed and be able to react better to the many wretched drivers out there in their cars.
It sounds scary to have computer driven 100,000lb vehicle barreling down the highway until you consider that massive jets are mostly autonomous, and with embedded sensors in and around roadways layered over the array of sensors in each truck I imagine it will actually work quite well.
I'm just starting my career in truck driving in the next few months. Autonomous trucks have been talked about for many decades they won't become commonplace for a long time. I'm 38 and i have no worries about not having a job with a cdl. Trucks currently cost around $125,000 new the cost of an autonomous truck will be double that and the only companies that would be able to afford that are the top 10 that have billions in revenue like Swift transportation. And even those companies will not be able to afford to replace their whole fleet with autonomous trucks. Swift owns about 7,000 tractors replacing even half of that fleet would be an astronomical cost. And the next issue would be what insurance companies would insure autonomous trucks? Which insurance companies are willing to take the increased risk? You'll see whenever autonomous trucks become the norm there will be tons of accidents a lot more then there are currently. Trucks do a lot more complicated maneuvers that a regular car doesn't.
I only want to drive a truck for about 10 years anyway and i know for a fact i won't be worried about these autonomous trucks taking my job any time soon.
p.s. Also you can't compare a jet to a truck in navigating scenarios. A jet doesn't have to worry about thousands of vehicles around it almost all day. A jet doesn't have to make tight turns or back up to docks. A jet doesn't need to climb and descend steep grades etc etc etc. A jet is takeoff and fly straight through air and land overall 3 steps.
I still see these self driving cars going the way of flying cars in the 50's. A few peoples pipe dream that will never be able to be produced for the masses. In order for it to remotely work, every road, path and trail everywhere in the world is going to have to be mapped out. In dense forest areas and jungles the GPS might not even be able to be picked up by the receiver. Too many other electronics would have to be involved as well which aren't fool proof and won't be any time soon. Fact is, electronics crap out.
What if salt gets into one of the units. it's fried.
Lightning? Count every bit of electronics fried and needing to be replaced. You'll have a car that absolutely will not move.
How about sensors? Are people going to be able to drive off road? What if they get a big chunk of mud on a major sensor? Think rear ending anything in front of them.
Same thing with snow.Yes, we should clean off our vehicles before driving off but does it always happen? Nope! So that snow blocking the front sensors wont do squat in stopping you from rear ending the car in front of you now will it?
What about a highway along a major route that's known for mud and rock slides. How is it going to keep up with every slide, rock, bolder, etc. A sheet of plywood with nails sticking out on the lane in front of you? A deer darting across your path from a clump of trees/ A kid running out from a parked car? Yes, those are risks for us mere humans as well but we can be ready by not having our foot on the gas because we saw a couple of glowing eyes off the side of the road a moment earlier. We may have seen a young kid playing behind a parked car. What is a self driving car going to do? Slow down to 2.5 MPH every time it senses something about to enter the road. Could you even imaging what those computers are going to think driving down a city street with hundreds of people walking besides the road? You think those computers are going to be able to differentiate between every pedestrian as in what direction they are going. What a nightmare sitting in one of those tin cans would be!
And good old electronics which will go up. As I've stated before, I am accustomed to using plenty of quality, high tech, integrated systems of GPS with backup, double radar, auto pilot, etc and have had them all crap out. Systems that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Also, that whole integrated system is really only as good as the charts we load into it (maps if this was on a car). Bottom structure changes and charts have to be updated (Lower Bahamas and coral head as an example) Likewise maps would need to be the same. (Rock slides, pot holes, wash outs, etc would have to be updated constantly. ) Who's going to do all that as there are countless more miles of roadway then there are shallow channel.
Have fun putting all your faith in some electronic crap. I'll continue to drive my own!
Avoiding these types of accidents is something these cars are going to excel at. Reaction times to obstacles in the road are measured in very small fractions of a second and they can be aware of potential dangers 360 degrees. I live in an area that has a lot of deer and usually the first glimpse you get of them is when you are running into them or almost running into them. These cars will be able to spot that movement in the woods day or night. As another example the can accelerate out of the way if it's safe to do so to avoid getting T-boned or rear ended.
The larger problem is the decision making process. There is a dog near me that likes to run down the fence line chasing cars. Something like that could cause the car to slow or stop....
They will work however the law dictates, it's a 4 way stop. This is an interesting problem because you don't have that communication with eyes/hands etc and some people don't know what the law is themselves. This isn't really a computer controlled car issue but human controlled issue. If you had four computer controlled cars all these problems go away.
Except the obstacles aren't in the road until just before impact. I've seen animals off the road moving towards the road and adjusted my speed to avoid the animal as it crossed the road. I've seen children running towards the road and applied the brakes to avoid the possibility of hitting the kid. These are things I did to avoid an obstacle that wasn't on the road but whose direction of travel and intention would have placed them in my path.
You understand that I'm not responsible to install a backup camera on my 1997 and 2001 vehicles, right? Those with cars built before seatbelts aren't required to install them, and even helmets are a state by state thing.
Yeah I get that you don't have to retrofit safety features. That's not what I said. Eventually insurance companies WILL simply charge you more because you are now a "risk". By not wearing helmets, your car not having seat belts etc. they can simply refuse to insure the vehicle. Think that's illegal? It isn't. There are insurance companies that will not insure F350s. Ask me how I know.
There will *ALWAYS* be "classic cars" around. Always. They won't be converted to self-driving and there will be affordable insurance available. I'm sure that as the decades roll by (many more than you're estimating), those vehicles will shift more and more into elite circles where you must have money... look at the brand Duesenberg for a modern example, they're simply expensive to buy due to the limited number, but that time will be LONG after I'm dead.
I don't know where you're reading self drive conversions. I never said that.
No. Here is where you're wrong. There won't always be affordable insurance. As you are considered a risk your rates go up. Insurance companies know who is a risk.
I won't bother with liability limits explanations, but insuring a old vehicle isn't cheap. I have older vehicles and there is nothing cheap about insuring them.
Similarly, there will always be countries where people can't afford "self driving", or where they simply don't work (heck, if they rely on map data alone, they won't work in the US Today), but there's still money to be made by auto makers in those countries so they will make sure they have a product that works for them. Come to think of it, how exactly would a farmer get about their business without being able to control their own vehicle off-roads? Or the home-owner do something simple like haul a load of rock into their back yard without manual controls? Nevermind the recreation aspects (4x4/rock crawling, hunting, backwoods cabins, etc...)
We're talking about the US market not the Ethiopian vehicle market. And like stated there most likely will be a manual mode human drive feature. What I'm saying is eventually using that option will be reported and your insurance rate adjusted for the time you use manual mode.
Isn't progressive insurance the one that has a driver monitor module you download your driving data for the month? You think that Progressive is doing that out of the goodness of their heart?
Again, time Will take its toll as these recreations change, but kids born Today are still being taught to enjoy getting off the grid (by those parents who enjoy it), and I'm willing to bet they'll fight to keep it through their lifetime.
As for me, I'm a driver. I still drive manual cars, used to roadrace motorcycles and AutoX cars (missing that). A mix would be just fine by me, perhaps with a visual indicator for vehicles that are, or are not automated. LOTS of people don't want to, or like, driving so they try to do something else when they Should be driving. Give them the out that they want and it becomes safer for Everyone. I'll forever be a "both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road ahead" kinda guy
So how many 70s Lincolns do you see driving around? Not too many. Yes there will always be "normal" cars around. I never said they won't be around. It's just that there won't be mNy of them around. It's just that there are so many ways to get rid of them where eventually there won't be many. How many people are drooling to restore a 1997 Camry? Not many.
Sure YOU may be the hands on driver. I maybe a hands on driver. Hey my truck has three foot pedals. Just expect to be the eventual minority and the insurance will see you as a higher risk while driving.
You seem to think that insurance companies give a crap about your vehicle. Believe me they would love to have a autonomous car that never wrecks or speeds, and STILL charge you a yearly premium.
Avoiding these types of accidents is something these cars are going to excel at. Reaction times to obstacles in the road are measured in very small fractions of a second and they can be aware of potential dangers 360 degrees. I live in an area that has a lot of deer and usually the first glimpse you get of them is when you are running into them or almost running into them. These cars will be able to spot that movement in the woods day or night. As another example the can accelerate out of the way if it's safe to do so to avoid getting T-boned or rear ended.
The larger problem is the decision making process. There is a dog near me that likes to run down the fence line chasing cars. Something like that could cause the car to slow or stop....
They will work however the law dictates, it's a 4 way stop. This is an interesting problem because you don't have that communication with eyes/hands etc and some people don't know what the law is themselves. This isn't really a computer controlled car issue but human controlled issue. If you had four computer controlled cars all these problems go away.
Regarding the 4-way; I actually wondered about this. I mean; I can't imagine anything else could do much worse!
Humans don't know how to handle traffic flow at intersections anymore. They were either jumping the gun & barely avoiding a crash or hesitating too long & getting confused because they missed their chance.
Thats interesting about the dog potentially "interrupting" the drive.
I wonder if our many bicycle lanes would do the same thing?
Something else that I haven't seen brought up- although I've scanned the posts of the thread I haven't read them all- is how dramatically autonomous vehicles will affect one industry in particular; Trucking. After taxicab drivers, and eventually Uber drivers, the next big wave of obsolete jobs will be truck drivers, and as they number 3.5 million this is no small thing to those now employed in the industry. As it is already a heavily regulated industry I imagine it won't be too difficult to layer on autonomous driving truck rules to it.
I foresee autonomous freight truck transport to actually make a much earlier presence than the widespread adoption of private autonomous driving cars. The trucks will all talk with one another and hook up as virtual trains staying in the proper lanes, being able to discern signals and brakes to safely allow cars to merge within them as necessary and freight companies will benefit from having exacting time schedules and communicative trucks letting them know exactly what's going on and expected delivery ETAs. It will make driving in the highways much safer, and I say this knowing that your average truck driver is much more skilled than your average car driver, but autonomous trucks will drive super conservative while maintaining speed and be able to react better to the many wretched drivers out there in their cars.
It sounds scary to have computer driven 100,000lb vehicle barreling down the highway until you consider that massive jets are mostly autonomous, and with embedded sensors in and around roadways layered over the array of sensors in each truck I imagine it will actually work quite well.
Its going to depend on HOW LONG it takes for these vehicles to be legal without an occupant. Then it will impact nearly every single profession that involves some form of delivery.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thecoalman
This will go way beyond trucking industry jobs. They are all at risk with this and other tech and I mean all of them. Why bother going to the store for that part if you can just print it? Amazon can deliver the printer material to you that came out of the robotized factory. How many jobs did that just wipe out?
The trucking industry itself eventually will be relegated to moving bulk material and local deliveries. A local manufacturing plant using large scale 3D printers could make cars one day( any make and model), refrigerators the next day and whatever else the next day.
When the printer can print a new printer? This stuff is coming....
By the time these are common, I see drones in full force picking up the small stuff.
Quote:
Originally Posted by eddie1278
I'm just starting my career in truck driving in the next few months. Autonomous trucks have been talked about for many decades they won't become commonplace for a long time. I'm 38 and i have no worries about not having a job with a cdl. Trucks currently cost around $125,000 new the cost of an autonomous truck will be double that and the only companies that would be able to afford that are the top 10 that have billions in revenue like Swift transportation. And even those companies will not be able to afford to replace their whole fleet with autonomous trucks. Swift owns about 7,000 tractors replacing even half of that fleet would be an astronomical cost. And the next issue would be what insurance companies would insure autonomous trucks? Which insurance companies are willing to take the increased risk? You'll see whenever autonomous trucks become the norm there will be tons of accidents a lot more then there are currently. Trucks do a lot more complicated maneuvers that a regular car doesn't.
I only want to drive a truck for about 10 years anyway and i know for a fact i won't be worried about these autonomous trucks taking my job any time soon.
p.s. Also you can't compare a jet to a truck in navigating scenarios. A jet doesn't have to worry about thousands of vehicles around it almost all day. A jet doesn't have to make tight turns or back up to docks. A jet doesn't need to climb and descend steep grades etc etc etc. A jet is takeoff and fly straight through air and land overall 3 steps.
What I read was 10 times that amount.
I think its going to take another 10-20 years before there are a significant number of these on the road (due to production limits, affordability of a new car, and new technology always has issues). Kind of how the Prius was as the first hybrid to really kick it off. I don't have a problem with them on the road, I have a problem with me being in one. Once you take driving out of the hands of many of the people who don't really care to put forth an effort to do drive, or those that clearly don't know how to do it even barely well, that alone should improve the roads dramatically.
My biggest question is; How close will they be following. If they can react quicker than most and even respond to several vehicles ahead, they COULD follow closer than the age old rule of carlengths/seconds, and still be safer than most when doing it... If those things are at least 2 car lengths behind in traffic, In my city you will get eaten alive, and I will make you my female dog.
Even if we forget all the benefits these vehicles will have to all those people who will NEED them, and just get a little selfish for a minute...........Even those of us who despise the idea of owning one, should still admit that they are going to make driving better. These SHOULD allow more people to make a left at the light. They SHOULD keep all the texters in there lane and not lagging back to make a giant gap cause they are too busy to focus. They SHOULD speed up the really slow people to accelerate quicker from a start and get more people through the lights. They SHOULD keep traffic closer to or at the speed limit when traffic allows. They SHOULD keep a few more drunks off the roads. They SHOULD reduce the number of accidents on the roads that keep us sitting in traffic for a half hour to an hour longer when going to and from work, (and possibly even reduce the time of your daily commute).
For me, HELL NO!!!.. For you, Suurrrrre.. Enjoy it.
In order for it to remotely work, every road, path and trail everywhere in the world is going to have to be mapped out.
A human is going to need a map, keep in mind these cars can learn and they would be able to do that collectively. There is multiple systems involved and they are in many cases redundant. If you go back to this 2005 video these vehicles were given GPS waypoints, how they navigated the road was all done with video recognition, LIDAR or other sensors.
Watch this video, it will give you an idea of how the tech behind these machines work. Granted this is a huge computer but it's also more than 6 years old. Pay particular attention to where they discuss the letter A.
What about a highway along a major route that's known for mud and rock slides. How is it going to keep up with every slide, rock, bolder, etc. A sheet of plywood with nails sticking out on the lane in front of you? A deer darting across your path from a clump of trees/ A kid running out from a parked car? Yes, those are risks for us mere humans as well but we can be ready by not having our foot on the gas because we saw a couple of glowing eyes off the side of the road a moment earlier. We may have seen a young kid playing behind a parked car. What is a self driving car going to do? Slow down to 2.5 MPH every time it senses something about to enter the road. Could you even imaging what those computers are going to think driving down a city street with hundreds of people walking besides the road? You think those computers are going to be able to differentiate between every pedestrian as in what direction they are going. What a nightmare sitting in one of those tin cans would be!
Avoiding obstacles in the roadway are things these cars will excel at, not only will they be able to react to that deer much faster than you ever will be they will be able to see that movement in the woods off to the side you'll never see.
Where the issues start is where decisions need to be made, things like is that a puddle of water or giant pothole? Is that a deer about to run into the road or a dog running up to the fence?
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