Hi my names Tom im new to this forum as a user but been a reader/viewer on ere for yrs. Im 31 and a fully quilified Trucker with all relevent and up to date licenses,cpc’s,Adr etc etc and like my job alot as a trucker always wanted to be a trucker and now i am a trucker and have put alot into gettin quilified
in this trade, now im noticing the future of the job i feel i was born for is very much been pushed by 100s of millions by big companys and investers to have full level 5 driver out autonamy and my quistion is will this happen ever. My opinnion on this is it never will at the very reach of this it could be legislated but after the first serious accident it will be canned forever more,but im not an expert an wud like to know your opinions on this? Cheers for takin the time to reply. And #KEEPONTRUCKIN
Not in our lifetime. Yes the technology is advancing and may well be fine for motorways, but start taking it into towns and country roads it will have no chance. Weight limits, bridge heights etc. Multi drop?? I mean who is getting out to open the curtain 
My job for instance, farm milk collections, turning in tight farm yards, testing the antibiotics in the milk and hooking up the pipe isn’t going to be done remotely. Just my opinion
The Job I just left,
Every other drop was a series of tight spots.
Open the barn doors, then reverse onto your loading bay. Or open them and then park into a bay outdoors (you can’t open them in the bay because of scaffolding/wall/building)
Navigate around Manchester City Centre
Move pallets of produce using a pump truck via a tail lift. Sometimes pull the pallet through the city centre streets to your delivery (no where to park the truck)
If the orders small enough, break down a pallet and load onto a sack truck and then wheel that into your delivery address.
Navigate the maze of basements/lifts at every other destination. (Arndale centre am talking about you)
Clean the truck, brush it out, refuel it and adblue.
Can a computer replace a driver there? Maybe some parts but not all. It’s not gonna happen.
Perhaps it might make motorways easier and drivers can go on break or something whilst the computer drives. But there’s more than just driving in this day and age.
Also, the first major crash involving an autonomous truck carrying a hazardous chemical, there will be an outcry and us drivers will come back off the shelf.
Simple answer, no.
Too complicated by far with unreliable electronics and the thorny question of responsibility in this increasingly litigious world.
However, anyone awake cannot have failed to notice the huge works going on around the country constructing rail freght interconnectability, at the same time as HS2 and probably intergrated with it.
My gut feeling is that much more distance general freight is planned to go by rail in the near future, maybe containerised or maybe they have something else planned.
This of course should have been happening for years as the fossil fuels we’ve been using at an ever increasing rate (Diesel in particular) is becoming increasingly expensive and in short and coveted supply as the world’s powers re-align themselves, there’s finite resources anyway and as the world’s population increases exponentially the time available to change systems is closing…unless their population reduction experiments work 
Some sort of hybrid or electric drive will increasingly feature in lorries, it has to, but it will probably be decades if ever before a fully freighted battery powered wagon can cover hundreds of miles fully laden and will likely require a similar downtime to the journey time to restock its motive power whatever that may be, unless the power bank itself can be replaced or restocked in very short order.
So, it would make sense (always has but no bugger in govt had the forward thinking) for the majority of long distance logistics to be on a train with direct link to electricity and no traffic issues, and to leave the local distribution to whatever will be the future in lorries.
I really don’t believe in anyone’s lifetime here that a road lorry will be sent out to cover a days work without someone on board to take responsibility if things go pear shaped.
Yes they’re spending huge amounts on autonomous systems, but any of us that have to use the crude ones now already in place could tell you half of them arn’t fit for purpose and in some instances poitively dangerous, the massive amount of further systems required for a vehicle to drive itself on British roads in particular are mind boggling and all of these systems have to work perfectly and together, and any one of what will be hundreds and possibly thousands of sensors and computers failing, or the systems in the road failing, which they will do frequently, well the whole things comes to a halt, hopefully not a crashing halt.
The other thing about designing and playing with big boys toys, ie these autonomous systems, is that it’s a good earner, it beats the hell out of working for a living, and they ain’t going to give a nice little gig like that up willingly so likely to tell the board and money men what they want to hear ‘‘nearly there jam tomorrow’’ (as politicians do when they want your vote) to keep those plum jobs lasting for as long as they can manage, who would blame them
The technology is there for autonomus vehicles however to make it safe for any practical use it would be far to expencive. They would also have to find a way of over coming the laws of physics there is a reason your crash avoidence system in your car only works up to 35 mph.
The only way electric vehicles will work is if they come up with a universal battery connection so you can pull up into a service station and exchange your flat battery for a fully charged one. Then of course they would need thier own solar and wind generators to facilitate the charging of the batteries as the national grid cant cope with the power required and of course runs on these naughty fossil fuels.
Im still an advicate of pulp for power as an alternative all the usless bags of skin and oxygen can be colected up and ground to a pulp mixed with slag from the foundries and burnt in the coal fired stations a soloution that will produce all the power required for years to come.
Of course they will , look at the technology around these days compared to 20 yrs ago , it’s a changing world , some things for the good , some not , but to suggest things won’t change / we won’t be replaced , is just burying your head in sand
The biggest issue will be what will people do for work , banks/ shops now closing as all the youngsters do everything on line , our checkout girls disappearing etc etc
It will be interesting to revisit this thread in 20 years
it’s only a matter of time. With ever increasing fuel costs, compliance costs, trucks themselves costing more to manufacture and maintain (to name a few) the push towards driverless trucks will only increase. Yes mabe not all driving jobs will be automated but most will, like depot to depot work or depot to port etc. straight forward jobs
If you’re old enough to remember “Tomorrow’s World” on TV, think about all the “innovations” they talked about back then which we should already have by now, yet which we don’t.
Human truck drivers will be replaced around the same time as we get the flying cars which sci-fi has been promising us for decades - according to Michael J Fox we were supposed to have them in 2015
Jimjam81:
I mean who is getting out to open the curtain
Yard workers/forklift drivers as they do in our spot. Shunter drops trailer where it’s getting loaded/unloaded, yard man/forkie deals with curtains and straps. I’ve been at the other end of the milk transporting and most places I’ve turned up it’s been the staff on the plant who’ve done everything, you literally reversing into the discharge point, handing over the paperwork then going to the canteen for a bre whilst they tip. Me manually hooking up hoses, taking samples and pumping out myself was very rare and basically only at places like Cadbury’s Keynsham which hadn’t seen any modernisation for decades and you still had to tip into grundys.
Jimjam81:
Not in our lifetime. Yes the technology is advancing and may well be fine for motorways, but start taking it into towns and country roads it will have no chance. Weight limits, bridge heights etc. Multi drop?? I mean who is getting out to open the curtain
But this truck can take from drivers all long haul delivery.Now drivers do delivery from Glasgow to London or move 1 container from Felixtowe to somewhere per day.All this job can do driverless truck.But driver will do only 10 delivery per day for last 50 milles to client.Now 100 driver do 100 load from Felixtowe to Midlands and back.With this new tehnology 80 drivers will jobseeker but only 20 will last milles delivery.
We must more worry not about may be this driverless truck.But more about rail transport grab own job.Every years more and more container moved by train.In Europe move normal trailer by train.Now can easy reduced number of truck in the road by 20-30 percent.Need simply do load exchange,reduced empty miles.Sometime now we have 50 percent with empty trailer.
I just remembner a few months ago how gov’t and everyone with a voice was saying there’s no drivers, driver shortage etc. we must make young people more interested in the profession yet at the same time those same people are actively working towards obliterating the job and I think gov’t is even subsidizing r&d
I were saying to my 'orse this morning, “these new-fangled internal combustion engines will never catch on”. 
I do not think we need worry …I am more worried about the idiots in Ukraine and Russia…the pair of them are a …
ETS:
I just remembner a few months ago how gov’t and everyone with a voice was saying there’s no drivers, driver shortage etc. we must make young people more interested in the profession yet at the same time those same people are actively working towards obliterating the job and I think gov’t is even subsidizing r&d
This years big drop in sale,big drop in haulage.Ready more driveres than rquired,some agency ready work 3-5 day per week,possible will be worse.
That will be a whole new meaning to the “blue screen of death” term. Because everyone knows software always work 100% of the time, with no hiccups ever.
There won’t be any wholly driverless vehicles on our roads, at least for a considerable number of years. Even when in ‘driverless’ mode, there will still be a driver present for those times when the system won’t/ can’t be used.
I really don’t see autonomous vehicles starting at a depot/customer and having full control right through the day to final park up at the end of a shift.
But, could definitely see it being a good idea on some industrial estates, factories etc where the veh is driven from the gates to the delivery point, and back again. It would certainly deal with those drivers who ignore the site rules!!!
Read some where today that a driverless bus is getting tried out
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rearaxle:
Read some where today that a driverless bus is getting tried outSent from my SM-T976B using Tapatalk
Which i shan’t be riding on as long as i have a rear orifice nor thanking the driver when alighting…does anyone still thank the bus driver by the way or has such common courtesy gone the way of everything else.
news.sky.com/story/uks-first-se … d-12598505
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