Just so everyone know how much of a blue-collar employment apocalypse this would be: “trucker” is the number one job title in most US states, and literally the last decent paying job you can get without a degree in most of them.
Automating it away–without a transition plan because fuck the poor–will devastate most of the Midwest and the South, as well as much of Canada.
If you think you have a problem with angry disenfranchised men now, just wait.
Would be cool if they could direct their anger towards the responsible parties this time. Unfortunately I’m sure it will somehow be “illegals are driving all our trucking routes.”
This is why I’m so pro basic income.
Giving people their basic needs met (food, home, safety).
Right now, the angriest folk are suffering and pointing the finger at the rest of the disenfranchised.
Work in transport. We have a severe lack of truck drivers in the US and a severe need. A few years ago the Prez of Texas Trucking Association stated he’s encouraging his son not to go into the biz because of the tough work requirements. He is very clear that trying to hire new drivers is hard. The industry acknowledges connected vehicles with semi autonomous trailers and trucks can support the dire need to move product. In certain circumstances autonomous driving can be useful and reasonably safe. Highways are usually well lit, well marked and well signed. This all helps improve autonomous vehicle safety.
literally the last decent paying job you can get without a degree in most of them.
Relatively decent paying. Most truckers are still contractors with the company they ship for, so they’re paying for their own truck and its maintenance, they have few benefits, awful working hours, typically horrid management, and an extremely unhealthy lifestyle because of the nature of the job.
It’s an industry that is incredibly harmful to the people working it. We should automate it away, but it sucks that it’ll come at the cost of people’s livelihoods and at the profit of the few company owners. Same story as ever.
This is how I’ve always felt about automation. Why keep doing the menial, shit jobs that are harmful to people’s health? Why continue wasting time in meaningless repetitive jobs?
Let us get more time back to live our lives, let us share in the production gains brought about by automation. Let us have meaningful lives outside of just our capacity to produce profits for corporations.
Except the ruling class won’t let that happen. We’re still fighting just to work from home for jobs that can be done entirely from home.
Ohh no! Those pesky results of our actions catching up with us!
The south, Midwest, and SW outside of Texas has pretty much done this to themselves. I get that good people are affected here outside their spheres of influence but these states might try education or some shit.
Oh my god can we please just have more trains?
The US and Canada actually make pretty extensive use of freight rail already, more so than Europe.
Monkey’s paw: granted, but safety regulations still weakened so you get ~ 5x the derailment and explosions we already do
Trains make a lot of sense for cargo moving ascoss more than 1-2 provinces/states, and shoukd be the first choice for that.
But for stuff moving only a couple hundred kilometers or less, and to all the places where there aren’t rails, you still need trucks.
That accurately describes the state we’re in today, it is that way (requiring trucks for a significant leg of the “last mile”) due to the incredible amount of subsidizing being done for road maintenance.
Imagine if we were subsidizing rail infrastructure for freight and passenger service.
This highlights an issue with trains. Why are building robot trucks cheaper than getting competition in the rail market?
(Roads are largely free to use and public, versus near monopolies on rail track use.)
Roads go everywhere you want to go, and it’s worth sending a truck for a much smaller load than a train
This isn’t about last mile trucking though, this is about long-haul trucking.
That said, considering trains are getting longer and longer and with fewer and fewer employees on board, I’m not sure that even more freight by rail is a good solution either.
The rail industry would be much better off being better regulated and with large rail companies broken up.
There’s also an article somewhere around here about an attempted renaissance in shipping. They headlined the Great Lakes, but included that Chicago could be a hub connecting the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River system- together those cover a huge portion of the US
Pretty much answering your last paragraph: Relevant John Oliver segment
Roads are a lot more flexible though. Tractors also use roads for example. As to bicycles and pedestrians.
Note that the above is about very rural areas where seeing 4 of the above per hour on any stretch is busy. As you start scaling up density it makes sense to separate uses, and trains quickly become the best option for various reasons.
The best option is what Europe has been trying to do by decoupling track ownership from companies running the trains. However, that would likely mean a government takeover of all tracks.
It’s weird to me that a company can own a train line which cuts though the country and needs maintenance. Like imagine if they owned roads…
The vehicles have drawn skepticism from safety advocates, who warn that with almost no federal regulation, it will be mainly up to the companies themselves to determine when the semis are safe enough to operate without humans on board. The critics complain that federal agencies, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, take a generally passive approach to safety, typically acting only after crashes occur. And most states provide scant regulation.
I’d be willing to bet you l3 systems, limited to highway miles, have a better track record than humans, especially in long hauls.
Ideally, sure.
Companies: “They’re safe! Trust us! It’s a total coincedence that we have a huge profit motive in them being you thinking they’re safe!”
I remember watching that scene on the highway in Logan with all the self-driving trucks and thinking, “this is our terrifying future too, isn’t it?”
I wish. A school of justice and equality defending mutants is still nowhere to be found.
