World's First Self-driving Truck

Whats gonna happen not if but when a drone goes through the windshield of a 787 or an A380 landing or taking off somewhere in the USA?

Indeed I see your point. You're right. It will never happen. We'll just stick with trucks because everyone knows they're safer......

You have a point too. Chain reaction highway crashes get far more publicity than 400+ people dying in a plane crash. Hell, an airplane makes the headlines when it lands safely with a flat tire.

Besides, safety doesn't dictate what we do or don't do in this society.....money does. Something that is dangerous but profitable has a much better chance of success than something that is safe but unprofitable. If big money can be made using drones they'll be used heavily at some point you can be sure.

There's still a lot of questions to be answered outside of the safety issues. First we have no idea the long term durability of drones. These things just took off in the last decade (no pun intended) and haven't been used in the retail space for very long. They have no idea how long they'll last or be efficient enough to continue to work. Second what about package weight. How big a package are they able to lift with out becoming the size of a helicopter. Third and to address what you said Brett about direct to consumer. You talk about cutting out warehouses but in reality they would be doing no such thing because the companies would have to put in additional buildings throughout the country to meet all customer demands. Unless you think that they can send a drone hundreds of miles each way for one package. And what about when the drone suddenly dies mid flight over the mountains or a lake. Lost product and lost drone not to mention the litter it can create.

Like I said before, I don't see this becoming a danger for my job in my lifetime. There's just to many details to work out if this is going to be the future for freight moving.

Besides, safety doesn't dictate what we do or don't do in this society.....money does. Something that is dangerous but profitable has a much better chance of success than something that is safe but unprofitable. If big money can be made using drones they'll be used heavily at some point you can be sure.

Exactly. We can't prevent every single accident, no matter how advanced technology is. There is great potential to make money with drones. Big companies are already testing with them. USAA has an exemption from the FAA to test drones on their main campus and in unpopulated rural areas. they are eventually going to use them to expedite insurance claims from natural disasters. I'm interested to find out the different ways drones are going to be used in the future.

It is safe to say, though, that machines will not replace us completely in this lifetime. Blue Collar jobs are the safest from this because there are some things that you just need people for. There are rumors around my work that when UPS expands the San Antonio hub in a few years, they are going to replace the small sort with machines, like they have at the Worldport Next Day Air operation in Louisville. Worldport mainly has loaders and unloaders. All of the sorting is done by technology, but they still need those people to do the jobs that machines can't. At least it's not like some desk jobs where they can outsource to other countries or replace you with a computer.

With what I do, I am not worried about it at all. Well except if that stupid thing is on the road with me. With that thing having the need to communicate with some sort of network, what is to keep a truck from being hacked into by some terrorists? Can't happen? We will see. They got into our electrical grid computers. That was supposed to be secure.

1. Lane markings are not always visible. Like say going east on I90 at night in the rain and going through the canyon up the hill between Bozeman and Livingston. In those conditions you can not see the lines. 2. In the winter when the road is all covered with snow or ice? Use GPS? 3. Use GPS... ha ha ha How often has your GPS been off? How often does your satellite radio cut out with no signal? 4. Drive into a canyon and lose communications 5. Wildlife Nuff said. 6. Watching the securement (open deck) 7. Low obstacles. What is the truck going to do? slam on the brakes and stop in the middle of the road? 8. Gusts of wind 9. Blown tire or two 10. Pretrip 11. Over sized loads. 12. Solar flares. These can stop communications with satellites 13. Then we get into the economics of job loss and such.

Guess I will stop there.

Really, the only way to make fully autonomous trucks work safely is to take the drivers out of the equation for all vehicles on the highway, and then turn the entire national highway system into a series of giant hamster tubes so that weather and wildlife are no longer an issue. And frankly, that kind of investment is so ludicrous that it will never happen.

"There was no one in the trucks. The sun glittered and flashed on empty cabs. The wheels turned themselves. You couldn't think about it too much. You'd go insane if you thought about it too much." --Trucks, Stephen King.

"There was no one in the trucks. The sun glittered and flashed on empty cabs. The wheels turned themselves. You couldn't think about it too much. You'd go insane if you thought about it too much." --Trucks, Stephen King.

You just made my day... I could hear the deep, hazy narratot voice (Diablo cinema style) saying that... Rofl!!!

@Pat M: I don't think you know how accurate a GPS or satellite image is. Refer to the US military. I'm pretty sure it's safe to speak about, and no longer classified. About 40 years ago: You could see a crystal clear image of a cigarette on the ground.

Now I'm not disagreeing with you entirely, but some of the things listed wouldn't have been possible in the 1940s. Thank God it's 2015.

The thing is that computers fail and with that we lose equipment. Even the military that has redundant systems. I personally do not want these things on the road with me. I know how accurate GPS is but it is not infallible. Who is going to be responsible when there is an accident? The company, the manufacturer, the satellite operator the county/state for not maintaining painted lines? I am not worried about it because of what I do but I can not even stand the thought of self driving cars on the road with my kids let alone a mobile car crusher. What would happen if it sensed a car too close on an icy road and the truck automatically hit the brakes? Then even if you had a driver in there, they will not have the experience needed to operate the vehicle safely. Gonna train them for 4 weeks and then put them in a truck that they only have to drive the last few miles?

The problem with any computer is human error... All computers are perfect they do what they are designed to do problem is that humans told them what to do and we all know that all humans have errors.... Lol so if they can take the human error out of the equation then it's possible but I don't see it happening...