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Pretty much every single truck driver I've talked to on the subject is in deep denial. They believe that the weird layout of the loading dock at some warehouse

Pretty much every single truck driver I've talked to on the subject is in deep denial. They believe that the weird layout of the loading dock at some warehouse could never be navigated by automated system or that them handing documents to someone at the point of delivery cannot be automated. They don't seem to understand just how much capital businesses are willing to spend to get rid of reoccurring labor costs. If there are any bright spots in all of this, it's that trucking has a high turnover rate already so few will directly lose their jobs and that trucking in general is rough on the body and the mind. The difficult question to answer is where will all of the people who would have gone into trucking going to go instead?

klenwell 7y ago
> They don't seem to understand just how much capital businesses are willing to spend to get rid of reoccurring labor costs. The trucking industry doesn't need to automate to slash labor costs. Exploitation is much simpler and more effective. A lot of truckers get the lesson eventually. The hard way. See for example: https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-forced-into-debt-worked-past-exhaustion-left-with-nothing/ https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-forc... A yearlong investigation by the USA TODAY Network found that port trucking companies in southern California have spent the past decade forcing drivers to finance their own trucks by taking on debt they could not afford. Companies then used that debt as leverage to extract forced labor and trap drivers in jobs that left them destitute. If a driver quit, the company seized his truck and kept everything he had paid towards owning it. If drivers missed payments, or if they got sick or became too exhausted to go on, their companies fired them and kept everything. Then they turned around and leased the trucks to someone else. Drivers who manage to hang on to their jobs sometimes end up owing money to their employers – essentially working for free. Reporters identified seven different companies that have told their employees they owe money at week’s end.
- vanniv 7y ago
  Company mining towns all over again, eh?
hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
> The difficult question to answer is where will all of the people who would have gone into trucking going to go instead? Revolution? I know and see lots of cheering in the tech world for automated driving, but not a lot of honest discussion about how it will probably be the largest upheaval in social order in at least a century, if not longer. Last I looked, in something like 48 of the 50 states the number one job involved driving for pay. While I happen to think we are further from driving automation than is usually presented, when it does come it will basically come all at once. There will just not be enough time for these millions of people to be absorbed elsewhere in the economy. Will be very interesting to see how society responds.
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  LIFO, Last In First Out, likely will be the response if several million are put out of work, or more accurately, unable to find work in a labor market where demand for human drivers has been significantly reduced. In a crowded labor market, there is a desire to thin out the competition. Those with the weakest connections here will get the brunt of the response. I'm not sure that it will happen all at once. My guess is long haul trucking restricted to interstates and certain limited access highways will be the first to be automated while residential delivery will be the last. The window might be relatively short. Perhaps five years or less from the start of autonomous driving until it's almost all autonomous. Certainly not longer that ten.
goldcd 7y ago
My guess is that the "death of trucking" will come in two parts. The part they say is 'hard' - is definitely a hard nut to crack - but maybe only a few percentage of the time they spend trucking. The "endless trips down thousands of miles of interstate, whilst remaining alert" - well that definitely sounds like something robots could do better right now. If I were "Lord of all truckers", I'd be negotiating right now. Build some idiot-robot-proof lots near major cities that their new robot overlords could drop off/pick up from, and then focus on just the difficult short trips from these lots to drop-off/pick-up points. Nobody else seems to be working on building these hubs, and truckers themselves could send a day working to/fro and then sleep in their own beds.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  Truckers are fucked because of motor carrier regulations that were changed to bust unions in the 80s. There’s no organization going to happen because distance trucking operates from labor hostile states. That said, the automation story is overplayed. Trains are the threat to trucking as fuel goes up.
  - asaph 7y ago
    What about electric trucks?
- generatorguy 7y ago
  Almost like a railway?
  - dx034 7y ago
    You need a lot of cargo heading into the same direction for railways to work. Without a direct connection it's still cheaper but much slower than rail. Automated truck "trains" could work well for much less volume, i.e. 3-5 trucks going between two cities. Fedex and UPS would be well suited to that, they can easily pool a few trucks that have 95%+ route overlap and drive roughly at the same time.

klenwell 7y ago

> They don't seem to understand just how much capital businesses are willing to spend to get rid of reoccurring labor costs. The trucking industry doesn't need to automate to slash labor costs. Exploitation is much simpler and more effective. A lot of truckers get the lesson eventually. The hard way. See for example: https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-forced-into-debt-worked-past-exhaustion-left-with-nothing/ https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-forc... A yearlong investigation by the USA TODAY Network found that port trucking companies in southern California have spent the past decade forcing drivers to finance their own trucks by taking on debt they could not afford. Companies then used that debt as leverage to extract forced labor and trap drivers in jobs that left them destitute. If a driver quit, the company seized his truck and kept everything he had paid towards owning it. If drivers missed payments, or if they got sick or became too exhausted to go on, their companies fired them and kept everything. Then they turned around and leased the trucks to someone else. Drivers who manage to hang on to their jobs sometimes end up owing money to their employers – essentially working for free. Reporters identified seven different companies that have told their employees they owe money at week’s end.

vanniv 7y ago
Company mining towns all over again, eh?

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago

> The difficult question to answer is where will all of the people who would have gone into trucking going to go instead? Revolution? I know and see lots of cheering in the tech world for automated driving, but not a lot of honest discussion about how it will probably be the largest upheaval in social order in at least a century, if not longer. Last I looked, in something like 48 of the 50 states the number one job involved driving for pay. While I happen to think we are further from driving automation than is usually presented, when it does come it will basically come all at once. There will just not be enough time for these millions of people to be absorbed elsewhere in the economy. Will be very interesting to see how society responds.

Mountain_Skies 7y ago
LIFO, Last In First Out, likely will be the response if several million are put out of work, or more accurately, unable to find work in a labor market where demand for human drivers has been significantly reduced. In a crowded labor market, there is a desire to thin out the competition. Those with the weakest connections here will get the brunt of the response. I'm not sure that it will happen all at once. My guess is long haul trucking restricted to interstates and certain limited access highways will be the first to be automated while residential delivery will be the last. The window might be relatively short. Perhaps five years or less from the start of autonomous driving until it's almost all autonomous. Certainly not longer that ten.

goldcd 7y ago

My guess is that the "death of trucking" will come in two parts. The part they say is 'hard' - is definitely a hard nut to crack - but maybe only a few percentage of the time they spend trucking. The "endless trips down thousands of miles of interstate, whilst remaining alert" - well that definitely sounds like something robots could do better right now. If I were "Lord of all truckers", I'd be negotiating right now. Build some idiot-robot-proof lots near major cities that their new robot overlords could drop off/pick up from, and then focus on just the difficult short trips from these lots to drop-off/pick-up points. Nobody else seems to be working on building these hubs, and truckers themselves could send a day working to/fro and then sleep in their own beds.

Spooky23 7y ago
Truckers are fucked because of motor carrier regulations that were changed to bust unions in the 80s. There’s no organization going to happen because distance trucking operates from labor hostile states. That said, the automation story is overplayed. Trains are the threat to trucking as fuel goes up.
- asaph 7y ago
  What about electric trucks?
generatorguy 7y ago
Almost like a railway?
- dx034 7y ago
  You need a lot of cargo heading into the same direction for railways to work. Without a direct connection it's still cheaper but much slower than rail. Automated truck "trains" could work well for much less volume, i.e. 3-5 trucks going between two cities. Fedex and UPS would be well suited to that, they can easily pool a few trucks that have 95%+ route overlap and drive roughly at the same time.