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> Most people in Silicon Valley subscribe to either the first or second school. Much of the rest of the country, including many truckers, favor the third. "I ca

> Most people in Silicon Valley subscribe to either the first or second school. Much of the rest of the country, including many truckers, favor the third. "I can tell the difference between a dead porcupine and a dead raccoon, and I know I can hit a raccoon, but if I hit a porcupine, I’m going to lose all the tires on the truck on that side," says Tom George, a veteran driver who now trains other Teamsters for the union’s Washington-Idaho AGC Training Trust. "It will take a long time and a lot of software to program that competence into a computer." Driverless trucks are a very interesting concept. Once they're on the freeway, I would think most automation would work (relatively) well. But getting through traffic congestions, busy multi-turn-lane intersections, and making sure you don't sideswipe someone who's hugging the line seems rather complex given the different trailer dimensions and blind spots, (un)marked lanes and everything else it takes to get to the highway.

maxerickson 9y ago
Why would the automated system have blind spots though? If it is viable at $50,000 it is probably viable at $100,000 or $200,000 (automated trucks will roughly double the efficiency of driving because of more hours on the road). I would think that a physics model would also give a reasonable automated system superior control over where the trailer is at a given moment (and to account for different trailers).
timemachiner 9y ago
> Once they're on the freeway, I would think most automation would work (relatively) well. That's assuming nice weather conditions. Mudslides, flash floods, extreme code, ice, snow, etc. needs to be taken into consideration.
- eduren 9y ago
  Of course those need to be taken into consideration but to be fair, aren't most of the conditions you listed dealt with by a human driver pulling over and waiting it out/calling for assistance? That's exactly what an autonomous system could do in those situations. And if there _are_ dangerous conditions that a human driver could navigate but an autonomous one would give up on, is that so bad? The industry is making enough efficiency gains to offset that.
  - thatwebdude 9y ago
    Doesn't most self-driving protocols out right now demand perfect conditions to even operate?
- JauntTrooper 9y ago
  Remote driving, though, might solve for this. You still have a human to react to unforeseen circumstances, but you can switch up the remote driver easily so you can work in shifts, drive 24/7, not stop for bathrooms/food etc. I'd imagine the quality of life would be significantly better too since they would work in the same spot with co-workers and could go home every day.
  - kstoneman 9y ago
    >I'd imagine the quality of life would be significantly better too since they would work in the same spot with co-workers and could go home every day. Actually, working in the same spot with coworkers was exactly the reason I started driving a truck. Going back to that would be an enormous downgrade in quality of life for me and a lot of drivers.
- bluGill 9y ago
  I grew up in Minnesota where we learned to deal with bad roads. We did drive on them and got good at it. The truth is we went in the ditch a lot when the weather was bad.
- adrianN 9y ago
  In those conditions human drivers don't work very well either. I'd rather have computers that drive very slowly because they can't see very well instead of humans that drive faster than they can see because "I'm a good driver".
  - jakeogh 9y ago
    People are astonishingly good at dealing with unconventional conditions. This idea that computers are 'smarter' than humans (that program them) in the realm of driving is amusing and terrifying at the same time. Calling them 'self driving cars' is oxymoronic. They are pre-programmed cars. The people duped into this will lose their driving skills and pretend it's other humans fault for not conforming to the program they invested in. I'm not all that worried, the market will sort this out in the US at least.
    - thatwebdude 9y ago
      If not the market, definitely the regulations once traffic reports start piling up... Even faster when there's no one behind the wheel to blame. Can't even imagine a manslaughter case where a driverless vehicle killed someone. Who's at fault? Most fault current resides in the driver, as they're the final call.
      - jakeogh 9y ago
        'Who's at fault?' Exactly. Humans. Humans are the bugs in their code. The control writers will argue for more laws so their programs work. The possibility that their code revisions are futile will dismissed as [insert buzzword]. I am excited that we get to watch this play out. The wildcard is biological CPU's: http://www.research.ufl.edu/publications/explore/v10n1/extract2.html http://www.research.ufl.edu/publications/explore/v10n1/extra...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ben_jones 9y ago
Don't forget what happens when people find out they can abuse driverless vehicles. Cutting them off, getting closer to them, slowing down in front of them, etc. God knows what commuters will do to them in the Boston area.
- bluGill 9y ago
  Don't forget that the driverless vehicle will have tracking. Expect to get a ticket complete with video if you do things like that. If you are costing the trucking company money they might be willing to send people to court against you as well (taking you to court might not be worth it, but the teach people a lesson aspect might make it worth it anyway)
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    Issuing that traffic ticket would not be a good long-term PR move for any organization that needs to work with the public (like the police). Trucks getting cut off is the norm in many areas. Punishing people for normal is generally not smart.
    - wernercd 9y ago
      Punishing people for "normal" has a way of discouraging "normal" and changing it into "not as normal".
- walshemj 9y ago
  And going across boarders I could see people smugglers hiring hackers to slow down the vehicles so that there clients could board the trucks. Drug smugglers are another group that could use this and how would a cop stop an autonomous vehicle to search it they would have to have a back door which could be abused
  - vkou 9y ago
    Autonomous trucks will be searched just like non-autonomous ones at borders. Outside of national borders, smuggling felonious quantities of hard drugs from state to state is already trivial.
needlessly 9y ago
Driverless trucks aren't going to 100% perfect. They just need to be significantly safe and more reliable than humans. Humans get sleepy, get emotional, zone out, and make all kinds of mistakes all the time. The first generation of driverless trucks will still have a human as passenger to be backup in case of mistakes. You may be thinking, "What's the point if there will still be a human there? s/he might as well drive." Well, humans still need breaks and can help give feedback to Truck for it to improve. The first generation won't be perfect, but it will be on its way.
- ams6110 9y ago
  More reliable than humans is too low a bar. People mostly forgive each other's imperfections, not so much a computer's. A self-driving truck is going to need to be at least an order of magnitude or more safer than a human.
russdill 9y ago
If dead porcupines are a problem, the system can be trained to identify them.
- thatwebdude 9y ago
  They're not dead, yet.
nimos 9y ago
I wonder what % of truck driving is highway driving? If you are covering the trucks in cameras and you have the control software there already it seems pretty easy(relatively at least) to have someone take over via remote for the last mile. AI sensors combined with some sort of 360 view VR with drivers for the last mile with full AI on highways/freeways would allow for progressive roll out of self driving technology. A lot of video to push down the wire though but probably manageable with modern codecs.
- thatwebdude 9y ago
  pretty much every sleeper truck is designed to be mostly highway. The ones that stay in-city are the single cab designs. This isn't always true for Owner-Operators taking a buck where they can get it, but most trucks are designed for this use. There's no other cost-efficient way to get goods across cities/states/provinces/countries/continents.
empath75 9y ago
I am extremely skeptical that a porcupine would take out a truck tire.
- thatwebdude 9y ago
  I'm not doubting the professional truck driver, though. Do you have experience running over porcupines? I do not. They've seen a lot. Enough to draw conclusions from fringe conditions like this. Perhaps this is more of an occurrence on re-treads.

maxerickson 9y ago

Why would the automated system have blind spots though? If it is viable at $50,000 it is probably viable at $100,000 or $200,000 (automated trucks will roughly double the efficiency of driving because of more hours on the road). I would think that a physics model would also give a reasonable automated system superior control over where the trailer is at a given moment (and to account for different trailers).

timemachiner 9y ago

> Once they're on the freeway, I would think most automation would work (relatively) well. That's assuming nice weather conditions. Mudslides, flash floods, extreme code, ice, snow, etc. needs to be taken into consideration.

eduren 9y ago
Of course those need to be taken into consideration but to be fair, aren't most of the conditions you listed dealt with by a human driver pulling over and waiting it out/calling for assistance? That's exactly what an autonomous system could do in those situations. And if there _are_ dangerous conditions that a human driver could navigate but an autonomous one would give up on, is that so bad? The industry is making enough efficiency gains to offset that.
- thatwebdude 9y ago
  Doesn't most self-driving protocols out right now demand perfect conditions to even operate?
JauntTrooper 9y ago
Remote driving, though, might solve for this. You still have a human to react to unforeseen circumstances, but you can switch up the remote driver easily so you can work in shifts, drive 24/7, not stop for bathrooms/food etc. I'd imagine the quality of life would be significantly better too since they would work in the same spot with co-workers and could go home every day.
- kstoneman 9y ago
  >I'd imagine the quality of life would be significantly better too since they would work in the same spot with co-workers and could go home every day. Actually, working in the same spot with coworkers was exactly the reason I started driving a truck. Going back to that would be an enormous downgrade in quality of life for me and a lot of drivers.
bluGill 9y ago
I grew up in Minnesota where we learned to deal with bad roads. We did drive on them and got good at it. The truth is we went in the ditch a lot when the weather was bad.
adrianN 9y ago
In those conditions human drivers don't work very well either. I'd rather have computers that drive very slowly because they can't see very well instead of humans that drive faster than they can see because "I'm a good driver".
- jakeogh 9y ago
  People are astonishingly good at dealing with unconventional conditions. This idea that computers are 'smarter' than humans (that program them) in the realm of driving is amusing and terrifying at the same time. Calling them 'self driving cars' is oxymoronic. They are pre-programmed cars. The people duped into this will lose their driving skills and pretend it's other humans fault for not conforming to the program they invested in. I'm not all that worried, the market will sort this out in the US at least.
  - thatwebdude 9y ago
    If not the market, definitely the regulations once traffic reports start piling up... Even faster when there's no one behind the wheel to blame. Can't even imagine a manslaughter case where a driverless vehicle killed someone. Who's at fault? Most fault current resides in the driver, as they're the final call.
    - jakeogh 9y ago
      'Who's at fault?' Exactly. Humans. Humans are the bugs in their code. The control writers will argue for more laws so their programs work. The possibility that their code revisions are futile will dismissed as [insert buzzword]. I am excited that we get to watch this play out. The wildcard is biological CPU's: http://www.research.ufl.edu/publications/explore/v10n1/extract2.html http://www.research.ufl.edu/publications/explore/v10n1/extra...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

ben_jones 9y ago

Don't forget what happens when people find out they can abuse driverless vehicles. Cutting them off, getting closer to them, slowing down in front of them, etc. God knows what commuters will do to them in the Boston area.

bluGill 9y ago
Don't forget that the driverless vehicle will have tracking. Expect to get a ticket complete with video if you do things like that. If you are costing the trucking company money they might be willing to send people to court against you as well (taking you to court might not be worth it, but the teach people a lesson aspect might make it worth it anyway)
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  Issuing that traffic ticket would not be a good long-term PR move for any organization that needs to work with the public (like the police). Trucks getting cut off is the norm in many areas. Punishing people for normal is generally not smart.
  - wernercd 9y ago
    Punishing people for "normal" has a way of discouraging "normal" and changing it into "not as normal".
walshemj 9y ago
And going across boarders I could see people smugglers hiring hackers to slow down the vehicles so that there clients could board the trucks. Drug smugglers are another group that could use this and how would a cop stop an autonomous vehicle to search it they would have to have a back door which could be abused
- vkou 9y ago
  Autonomous trucks will be searched just like non-autonomous ones at borders. Outside of national borders, smuggling felonious quantities of hard drugs from state to state is already trivial.

needlessly 9y ago

Driverless trucks aren't going to 100% perfect. They just need to be significantly safe and more reliable than humans. Humans get sleepy, get emotional, zone out, and make all kinds of mistakes all the time. The first generation of driverless trucks will still have a human as passenger to be backup in case of mistakes. You may be thinking, "What's the point if there will still be a human there? s/he might as well drive." Well, humans still need breaks and can help give feedback to Truck for it to improve. The first generation won't be perfect, but it will be on its way.

ams6110 9y ago
More reliable than humans is too low a bar. People mostly forgive each other's imperfections, not so much a computer's. A self-driving truck is going to need to be at least an order of magnitude or more safer than a human.

russdill 9y ago

If dead porcupines are a problem, the system can be trained to identify them.

thatwebdude 9y ago
They're not dead, yet.

nimos 9y ago

I wonder what % of truck driving is highway driving? If you are covering the trucks in cameras and you have the control software there already it seems pretty easy(relatively at least) to have someone take over via remote for the last mile. AI sensors combined with some sort of 360 view VR with drivers for the last mile with full AI on highways/freeways would allow for progressive roll out of self driving technology. A lot of video to push down the wire though but probably manageable with modern codecs.

thatwebdude 9y ago
pretty much every sleeper truck is designed to be mostly highway. The ones that stay in-city are the single cab designs. This isn't always true for Owner-Operators taking a buck where they can get it, but most trucks are designed for this use. There's no other cost-efficient way to get goods across cities/states/provinces/countries/continents.

empath75 9y ago

I am extremely skeptical that a porcupine would take out a truck tire.

thatwebdude 9y ago
I'm not doubting the professional truck driver, though. Do you have experience running over porcupines? I do not. They've seen a lot. Enough to draw conclusions from fringe conditions like this. Perhaps this is more of an occurrence on re-treads.