But do the drivers speak English? /s
this post was submitted on 02 May 2025
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But, do they speak English?
Americans will do anything to avoid just using trains.
While I don't necessarily disagree with you, trains are used here all the time specifically for long haul stuff.
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Even in a hypothetical best-case scenario world, unless you have a driver on board any malfunction and you're delayed 2-8 hours because there wasn't a person in there to repair anything
How many issues on a truck is the driver able to fix themselves though?
A lot. Most of them do a lot of basic maintenance and break-fix work themselves.
Lol, no they dont. This is such reddit shit. Say something people will believe for the updoots because they have zero clue.
Your average driver is lucky to have a bat to check tire pressure. All the old guys that know how to work on their rigs are now too old to do it, or have enough money to just call the roadside desiel mechanic. 90% of drivers don't own their rig, don't give a shit, and are taught to just call the company to send a mechanic.
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As of Thursday, the company’s self-driving tech has completed over 1,200 miles without a human in the truck.
That's not an impressive number. That's like 2 days' worth of driving.
Yeah that's about 2 and a half round-trips between Dallas and Houston, that's...not a lot to be calling this thing ready to go and pulling out the safety drivers.
I wonder how these handle accidents, traffic stops, bad lane markings from road construction, mechanical failure, bad weather (heavy rain making it difficult/impossible to see lane markings), etc.
You'd think they would be keeping the safety drivers in place for at least 6+ months of regular long-haul drives and upwards of 100k miles to cover all bases.
Most rigs go at least 1,000,000 miles and that isn't isn't even end off life. You'll be paying not much less than new for a rig that only has 100k, that's practically brand new. These systems should have 100 million proven miles. These things weight 80,000lbs which can be very hazardous materials.
You should see the pile ups semis cause in low visibility. Even with really good lidar, I hesitant to say autonomous trucks can be safe running off independent systems on full mixed use roads.
We could add those systems to all roads to feed back to semis to know conditions and hazards miles before they reach them. We could build new smart roads for all autonomous vechilce to travel on separately.
Or we could just end the 100+ year old railroad cartel. Could move people and cargo with ease. But that isn't profitable.
That figure is without a human in the truck, not with a safety driver. I.E, they've done a bunch of testing beforehand.
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Why not make automated trains with their own dedicated right of way?
It's absurd to suggest running a railway to every warehouse in East Bumfuck, Missouri.
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*** everyone but the lobbyists liked that ***
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Great... I can't wait to be hit by one of those on my motorcycle
Same. Our government can't even figure out a way for us to trigger a green light so I'm not confident that any self-driving vehicle regulations will consider us either.
Heh, I got hit by that stupid thing today. Luckily the crosswalk button was right there, so I ran over and smacked it before the traffic signal cycled again.
I've heard of people doing this but my strategy is to just wait until it's safe and run the red light or go right and bang a uey.
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I vaguely remember a dystopian book that described that exact thing as the protagonist thinking he was looking at an odd flag on the front of the truck until he realized what it was. Can't remember what the book was though 😔
I'd actually bet they're safer than some tweaked out dude on his 20th hour at the wheel.
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Terrifying.
I wonder how much our car insurance will go up due to this.
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And how do they handle a person slowing down in front of them and hijacking them? At least a human might be able to navigate away aggressively but I think the programming would prevent as much harm as possible.
This new lawless future and we may need to raid corpo lords.
Honestly, sounds like the corporation's problem. I'm more afraid for human lives than some product in the back. In a case like that it'd be better to not have a driver who could be killed.
I can't really imagine people wanting to hijack a truck that's basically a giant camera and tracking system.
Really?
Big box truck, no plate or other #s on the rear. Halloween masks for the crew.
I think that'd work, no problem.
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I've seen plenty of youtube videos to know people are dumb enough to try this.
The resistance needs supplies!
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What an incredibly infuriating waste of effort that would be so much better spent on trains, driverless or otherwise.
I don't know why you're being down voted; here's an upvote for being sensible.
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