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Probably explains the abundance of bitter, over-the-road guys who've been hauling refrigerated, irregular route freight for 5-10 or more years. No local positions back home or where they want to live. So rather than quit and deal with a reduced paycheck or none at all, they're pretty much forced to endure the BS until they either blow up and get tossed, or bad medical DQ's them into minimum wage work.
Sad reality for many a driver, really.
Driving as a job is a ticking time bomb... we will have self-driving cars and tractors, and sooner than many think.
If I was rowing gears for a living, I'd have been looking for something else months if not years ago. Nobody cares if that's "all you know how to do"... the gutters are littered with people who got stuck in the past.
Driving as a job is a ticking time bomb... we will have self-driving cars and tractors, and sooner than many think.
If I was rowing gears for a living, I'd have been looking for something else months if not years ago. Nobody cares if that's "all you know how to do"... the gutters are littered with people who got stuck in the past.
That's a harsh, yet true statement if I've ever read one. Problem is, "what isn't going to be automated?" It's either keep up with what's safe from automation, become a bum, or turn to crime for survival.
But with that last one, it seems as though the building of prisons is keeping pace with the rate of automation. Scary times.
Driving as a job is a ticking time bomb... we will have self-driving cars and tractors, and sooner than many think.
If I was rowing gears for a living, I'd have been looking for something else months if not years ago. Nobody cares if that's "all you know how to do"... the gutters are littered with people who got stuck in the past.
I regularly drive on some roads where the lane stripes aren't visible. There are also icy/wet road conditions, not to mention all of the idiot drivers. Then there are construction zones, debris in the road, deer/cows/whatever running across the road. Does a robot truck know how to handle all of that?
Trains would be much easier to automate, but there are still plenty of train engineers. What about airplanes? It seems like they wouldn't be impossible to automate, yet there are still plenty of pilots.
I'm not saying it won't ever happen. I just HIGHLY doubt it will happen in our lifetime.
I regularly drive on some roads where the lane stripes aren't visible. There are also icy/wet road conditions, not to mention all of the idiot drivers. Then there are construction zones, debris in the road, deer/cows/whatever running across the road. Does a robot truck know how to handle all of that?
Trains would be much easier to automate, but there are still plenty of train engineers. What about airplanes? It seems like they wouldn't be impossible to automate, yet there are still plenty of pilots.
I'm not saying it won't ever happen. I just HIGHLY doubt it will happen in our lifetime.
Long haul and other point-A to point-B along major freeways I could see happening. But like you said, all those other factors out there will still cause a major crash. Let's not forget theft and tampering as well.
Driving as a job is a ticking time bomb... we will have self-driving cars and tractors, and sooner than many think.
If I was rowing gears for a living, I'd have been looking for something else months if not years ago. Nobody cares if that's "all you know how to do"... the gutters are littered with people who got stuck in the past.
Will never reach anything near critical mass - these self driving cars will be targeted toward the 1%, and 20 something yuppies who are the children of this 1% living in trendy and fully gentrified sections of NYC, Boston or San Francisco the same demographic group seem to love to ride $5000 bikes everywhere and were able to get streets narrowed for a dedicated bike lane making car traffic worse
You won’t see self driving semi tractor trailers anytime soon. You can’t get a automated semi through big city traffic to deliver their load to a business that has their receiving dock in the back of a one lane driveway and the dock is on a angle you need a professional driver to maneuver That 54 trailer into that dock. Right now there is a shortage of professional tractor trailer drivers, don’t forget truckers keep America going without semi trucks we would not have food in our food stores, building materials at the home improvement stores, gasoline to fuel our vehicles, everything we consume and use is delivered by trucks, a train can only go in a straight line trucks take it from the rail yard to their points of destination. My oldest daughter drives a tractor trailer for the company she works for and makes a dam good living and she is home every night.
Long haul and other point-A to point-B along major freeways I could see happening. But like you said, all those other factors out there will still cause a major crash. Let's not forget theft and tampering as well.
When a robot truck rams into a minivan full of kids because it doesn't know how to react to some odd situation, there will be a media s***storm and the party will be over for robot trucks.
When a robot truck rams into a minivan full of kids because it doesn't know how to react to some odd situation, there will be a media s***storm and the party will be over for robot trucks.
It won't be over--
There are many examples of self-driving cars right now that are not safe
They will just mess with the algorhythim and say it's fixed...
When a robot truck rams into a minivan full of kids because it doesn't know how to react to some odd situation, there will be a media s***storm and the party will be over for robot trucks.
No doubt about that one. Mothers Against Tired Truckers, or any one of their sister organizations will bring that to a halt right away. There's already plenty of scrutiny placed on trucks and drivers currently because of them.
So yeah, I'm not too worried about the immediate future of the job in general. Even moreso with all the right endorsements and types of experience brought into the fray.
The OP, or with the age of this thread, anyone in their position, is just going to have to reach beyond their current state of residence and take the job search further out for employment opportunity. I did myself and might have to again. It's all about dumping loose possessions into the trash and taking along just what you need.
Right now there is a truck driver shortage of about 650,000 jobs that need to be filled I know some drivers that make in excessive of $75,000 a year and are on vacation all the time because they get to travel all over this great nation of ours, being a truck driver is a lifestyle that today’s youth don’t want because they want to sit in a office instead of a cab of a truck.
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