Human operators are absolutely crucial to the introduction of autonomous systems.
The greatest barrier to widespread introduction of, in this case, trucks - is the reputational risk to the first MegaCorp to introduce it in the case of teething problems, which there will be. Teething problems for autonomous vehicles means people getting killed and maimed… people getting killed and maimed by robots is not a problem, the problem is the damage that the news of it does to MegaCorps share price.
The solution to the problem is to insert a breakaway link in the chain- a human to blame. It’s win-win - every accident let’s you make your product better and every accident increases the public clamour for fully autonomous vehicles.
The only losers are the drivers, and that’s their own fault for being born to plebs, if they’d had the foresight to be born to decent, rich folk, they wouldn’t be in this mess.