I can certainly see driverless trucks being utilised by the likes of Amazon & the other big parcel companies inside my own working life. Straight forward A-B, bay door to bay door movements, working hand in hand with the driverless shunter tugs on site that I think we see much sooner.
Driverless trucks seem far fetched at the moment, but as driverless technology in cars becomes more & more common over the next decade or so and human involvement in driving becomes less, the more feasible they become. Reason being that the driverless cars will be able to ‘talk’ to the driverless trucks & cooperate with each other.
Bloody glad i’ll be long out of it, and probably pushing up daises when the cars and lorries start talking to each other.
Gunna be fun when error 404 flashes up
I was listening to a radio 4 program a couple months back about driverless cars. It said driverless technology is graded 1 to 5. One uses things such as cruise control etc, basically what we’ve already got. Five was completely driverless, without a steering wheel (1-4 have a steering wheel). The interviewee said, if I recall correctly, that technology for 4 is in existence, but 5 is decades away. And this was cars.
Nothing to worry about with lorries for the time being. Even if lorries did utilise 4, a driver (attendant) would likely still be needed, much like pilots are in planes.
I don’t know about you lot, but I’m still driving manual gearboxes, and yet to drive anything that brakes on its own, or keeps a safe distance on its own. The most technological thing I’ve driven is eco roll cruise control, lol.
Enjoy it while you can Ezydriver, not sure you’re going to like the bloody buzzing and rattling when it don’t like your line, or the gearbox that insists in defaulting to eco, i haven’t had one brake on me yet for no reason but my mate had a dead stop in a village for no reason whatsoever when the lorry presumably ‘saw’ a bollard , and some posters here have mentioned some lorries chucking the anchors out on the approach to bridges, wonderful, can’t wait till everyone has one of these infernal bloody machines, won’t that be fun
Juddian:
Enjoy it while you can Ezydriver, not sure you’re going to like the bloody buzzing and rattling when it don’t like your line, or the gearbox that insists in defaulting to eco, i haven’t had one brake on me yet for no reason but my mate had a dead stop in a village for no reason whatsoever when the lorry presumably ‘saw’ a bollard , and some posters here have mentioned some lorries chucking the anchors out on the approach to bridges, wonderful, can’t wait till everyone has one of these infernal bloody machines, won’t that be fun
Mate, I make driving an artic look like ballet (especially the FWD ones)… there will be no buzzing and rattling.
UKtramp:
I find it incredible how some of you cannot see this happening. We have the technology to implement driver less trucks now. It will most certainly be a reality. The majority of you on here that scoff at such wondrous things and will see it as black magic no doubt. Hence the smart drivers I talk about, these will indeed be piloted by intelligent drivers who have other skills to offer as they most certainly will not be the traditional trucks as we know them now. Mumbo jumbo, I think not.
We don’t have the technology to implement driverless trucks right now. If we did, they’d be out here already. These things are currently only capable of driving in a straight line on a straight road if there’s no one else about. In he future I have no doubt that there will be, but that’ll be decades away.
If you’re so smart, why do you believe everything you hear without question?
Why do you have to always throw in an insult, your obviously a real expert on this subject, not. Do you think your actually in the know of this technology, so when this gets trialed next year, they will stop the trials if it isn’t in a straight line. you are living in the dark ages and technology such as this does not take decades from now, it has been developed decades ago.
Right, first off, it wasn’t an insult, it was a question. Dont be such a precious princess.
Secondly, I don’t “always insult you” as this is (from memory) only the second time I’ve replied directly to you.
Thirdly, I have a degree in electronic engineering (2:1 B/eng) that I used to get a job designing, building and maintaining mechatronic devices before moving on to a teaching role. Admittedly I am rather out of date, but I doubt very much that the theories have changed that much. I like to think that gives me a rather informed perspective on such things.
switchlogic:
To be honest though those of you thinking they won’t be able to make this work on UK roads are just engaging in wishful thinking. I don’t like the idea of doing away with our jobs any more than you do but this is coming and coming fast. So fast that I wouldn’t want to be that kid again who wants to be a truck driver because it’ll probably never happen now, sad as that makes me
I used to think this was going to happen quickly, but reading more about it, it will come, all the way up to full automation, but the timescales might be hyped up by the manufacturers to encourage investors, especially as some of the companies pushing this are recent start-up hi-tech companies.
There are many jobs that will be automated and hopefully new jobs created, the generation leaving school now are very likely to find themselves doing job in 30 years time that don’t even exist now, well that’s the positive outlook.
The negative outlook is that there will be very few jobs, because the economic system we have works on short term profits with very little concern about the long term social and environmental impact. This will lead to a massive gulf between haves and have nots followed by civil unrest and revolution.
I used to think it was going to be a long way off, until I drove a truck with adaptive cruise control and realized most of the tech is already here
I think the biggest obstacle will be public resistance. Surely if we are where we are with driverless vehicles a driverless rail network would of been possible years ago.
Other than things like the DLR trains still have drivers and I’m sure it’s due to public opinion.
Should bin the new technology and bring back the Eaton twin splitter gear box, oh what fun that was in an ERF.
Should make it part of the test to gain your Lgv licence.
The comments back then were only a proper driver can use it.
Or bring back the Wendy house Volvo FL12 , you had to be Ronnie Corbett size, to get dressed in those .
The FL12 pulled well, not bad lump in it.
Some were away for weeks on European round trips in them .
Why did Scania not keep the 112,113,142 and 143 format, the 142 V8 before speed limiters came in were the best .
Captain Caveman 76:
If you’re so smart, why do you believe everything you hear without question?
Who says that I believe everything I hear without question? No not an insult but certainly a very snide remark to make. If I were to say to someone in a conversation “If your so smart” that is a very belittling starter. Also for the record a degree in electronics does not really give you any insight into the field of a driver less truck. Electronics is based on electrical circuitry more biased on components than the actual development of this kind of technology. Perhaps computer Science and software engineering is the real leader in this technology not the actual PCBs.
There is also a PDF on the gov website that sates some info on how things are meant to work but i had a quick scan of it and its actually worrying to read. We are profesional drivers and no computer (in my opinion) can do what we drivers do or deal with. I dont think its going to work anytime soon. They say that up to 5 vehicles can platoon at any given time. Spacing will be closer for aerodynamic drag to reduce fuel usage and save on emmisions oh and have to be the same vehicle they cannot mismatch at the moment… Sorry but this is not for me… scary thoughts are coming to mind.
UKtramp:
Who says that I believe everything I hear without question? No not an insult but certainly a very snide remark to make. If I were to say to someone in a conversation “If your so smart” that is a very belittling starter. Also for the record a degree in electronics does not really give you any insight into the field of a driver less truck. Electronics is based on electrical circuitry more biased on components than the actual development of this kind of technology. Perhaps computer Science and software engineering is the real leader in this technology not the actual PCBs.
Coming from the master of the snide remark, I’m surprised you’re so sensitive. Does this sound familiar?
UKtramp:
I find it incredible how some of you cannot see this happening. We have the technology to implement driver less trucks now. It will most certainly be a reality. The majority of you on here that scoff at such wondrous things and will see it as black magic no doubt. Hence the smart drivers I talk about, these will indeed be piloted by intelligent drivers who have other skills to offer as they most certainly will not be the traditional trucks as we know them now. Mumbo jumbo, I think not.
Reads to me as one long snipe at the, in your opinion, “less intelligent” who don’t happen to share your opinions. You just can’t help yourself can you, you even manage to dismiss my qualifications as irrelevant whilst ignoring my first job. Perhaps you should Google “mechatronics”.
You’re just an obnoxious piece of work with an over inflated opinion of themselves. And for the record, that WAS an insult. Fool. (That was too, I don’t want to leave you in any doubt.)
More to the point is the lead driver on more money, is he required to hold ADR for the DG’s in truck 3 and do they all pull into the same layby when guy in truck2 needs a pi$$.
Captain Caveman 76:
You’re just an obnoxious piece of work with an over inflated opinion of themselves. And for the record, that WAS an insult. Fool. (That was too, I don’t want to leave you in any doubt.)
Oh dear, you are very angry, I wonder why I was so dismissive and also why are you so angry? Caught out perhaps?
