04 Feb Autonomous Trucks
It’s rare indeed to find NASTC on the same side of an argument as the Teamsters Union, but that is the case precisely when it comes to autonomous vehicles.
According to Transport Topics, (February 6, 2023), the Teamsters joined Assembly member Cecilia Aguiar-Curry in announcing new legislation that would require all self-driving semi-trucks have a human driver present to oversee the truck. The Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association opposes this proposal arguing that autonomous trucks would make for safer roadways, asserting “computers make fewer mistakes than humans.” I wonder if they considered the literally billions of mistakes made by humans in designing, programming, and implementing complex computer systems and software? I don’t know about you, but I’m not excited about sharing the roadway with autonomous vehicles of any kind, much less a class 8 commercial vehicle.
At NASTC’s annual conference over the years we have honored over 500 multi-million, accident-free “Drivers of the Year.” For those who might read this outside the long-haul family: to log 1,000,000 accident-free miles requires a driver drive for 8 to 10 years at a rate of 9,000 miles per month without having a reportable accident, injury, or property damage. Generally speaking, we have 14 to 20 such drivers honored at our conference each year and they average more than two million accident-free miles each. At the driver of the year luncheon, I get to ask each of these Hall of Famers how they did it, and the answers vary in length and depth. One gem harvested from the luncheon was not only memorable but also extremely intuitive. This driver of over 3 million accident-free miles simply and immediately replied, “I left on time and drove the speed limit.” But my favorite question each year has always been, “How many lives do you save and how many accidents do you prevent each week, each month, each year?” Most will say that accidents prevented are almost a daily occurrence and of course, there is absolutely no way to honestly appraise lives saved, but on a career basis, I venture to say that with these drivers the number would be in the hundreds.
Replacing these heroes of the highway with autonomous, self-driving trucks is short sighted, frivolous, and extremely dangerous and, I fear if the technocrats in Silicon Valley have their way, all safety numbers concerning large trucks will be drastically compromised.
“Computers make fewer mistakes than humans.” Really?