Originally published at: Nobody Is Asking the Hard Questions About What Happens When an Autonomous Truck Breaks Down on the Highway at 2 AM. Let Us Start. - FreightWaves
This article is not an argument for or against autonomous trucks. It is not a prediction about what the freight market looks like in 2035, and it is not an endorsement of any technology company’s safety record or business model. It is a set of questions that the industry — carriers, drivers, regulators, first responders,…
Not sure why you say that no one is asking these questions. $100’s of millions if not into the billions spent on developing this technology. And you think the developers and then the customers are not asking those questions?
Lol, you think they are? Tech has never been interested in the fallout and how to prevent or deal with it.
We already have TPMS it’s good for about six months or the first tire change. Ever after you will be dealing with false “flat tire” warnings. Easy enough for a human to give em a thump and ignore the red light… the robot will have to pull over and wait for the tech… maybe that’s an hour near a major service center, but where I drive that tech ain’t coming for hours, and maybe not at all in the snow, twenty below, Christmas Eve.
The tow trucks come out,the tow trucks come out..
..In all fairness,the owners of said trucks will realize a humans worth and compensate them accordingly or go out of business trying not to..
Quiet is kept, I’d work on the code and make bank while planning my exit.. knowing that it’s not going to last.. They’re spending billions on this ,wind energy and solar panel systems instead of the infrastructure (roads,bridges,water and sewer lines that are falling apart)..any industry that needs subsidies to stay afloat won’t last long.. Nothing wrong with technology, however a thorough cost analysis must be done compared to what existing technologies to see if it is a viable alternative and continue invovating to solve problems for the greater good..
The real use fir autonomous trucking ,should have been used too help assit the driver in between city pionts on the open road ,like they started in Europe years ago ..In the crowded urban areas the human element takes over ,through or too the shipping/delivery piont ..Investment in America just wanted too skip over the driver too try and save money ,but it in the long run will cost when the break in period ends ..Safty gets lax ,company with autonomous trucks cut cirners trying too boost profit margins..You know like they do in the airlines and anything else a transport company boast ther completely safe 100% in ther operations..ya right ,they’ve git a deal on ocean front property soon in Arizona tok sell ya…In trains ,aircarft,ocean,we still have the hunan element, why ,SAFTY ,untill it becomes so called financialy obsolete..Chaos too follow ..
The question that I want answered is who takes the blame, who gets fired, and who goes to jail when a serious accident happens with no human in the truck.
Thats the neat part… noone
Two things I can think of:
- a spare tractor, parked at a strategic distance, is automatically dispatched and switches out with the disabled one.
- doing away with the tractor, like a Humble, these can be ganged in a train, and some at the tail end can just freewheel, power being distributed across all the units attached. When the lead breaks down, the end one powers up, drives to the front, connects, and off they go. Drop the broken one off at a repair facility, relink, and off they go.
Guessing you have never worked in product development for any company, let alone a tech company.
Solving problems is a large part of what these companies do. Driverless trucks are looking at filling a gap of the lack of QUALIFIED drivers(no shortage of CDL holders but few QUALIFIED CDL holders).
But you can figure out the problem, the solution, and implement it and if a basic simple workflow is not followed, you have a human issue not a tech one.
Great example, someone was talking about what they claim was an issue on this forum. Took me less than 20 seconds with Google to see that this was a concern, it was being worked on and some said they had the solution. The answer to the poster was a simple google search away yet they couldn’t bother.
You mean the thump that for almost two decades it has been shown to be only slightly more reliable than not checking?
I do hate that ever time I have a tire changed on my pickup that I have to replace the TPMS but wifes car and last two cars TPMS work fine.
Our 5th wheel TPMS that uses bluetooth to communicate is rock star.
Sounds like your system is the issue and not all tpms