MrFaulconbridge:
This technology scares me to death. I’m only a 22 year old driver and I love it but I don’t want to be out of a job in the next decade. Do you think drivers will be needed for the next 50 years at least? Also I worry as trucks become more autonomous, drivers wages will come down even further.
Don’t worry, living wage coming to a wage slip near you soon.
And they bang on that people have to work…
Doing what I ask? We really are becoming vegetables.
If you really want too see the here, now, future, I suggest go watch DISNEY’S WALL-E FILM…
We have a decade left at best.
How funny, I’ve just watch the little promo video they showed on the morning news where the driver turns his seat and starts looking at a tablet instead of the road! 
For one i’d have to do thousands of miles before I trusted it to do that even in the most basic of conditions.
But more importantly can you see that watching a movie or making a cuppa would be acceptable to your boss?
I suspect we would be expected to have our eyes glued on the road poised to take over in a split second, which i think would be more tiring than actually controlling it. I’d probably struggle to stay awake, let alone focused…
MrFaulconbridge:
This technology scares me to death. I’m only a 22 year old driver and I love it but I don’t want to be out of a job in the next decade. Do you think drivers will be needed for the next 50 years at least? Also I worry as trucks become more autonomous, drivers wages will come down even further.
Don’t worry it’ll never work in this country.
Its never going to happen in Britain in any of our lifetimes, by the time the technology is good enough (25 years?) the population will be approaching 100 million standing room only and the civil war, that’s possibly coming to western europe, may well have kicked off and that will take us back decades.
The only place it might happen is on a smart motorway, with purpose made lanes ‘‘tracked’’ to guide semi autonomous vehicles, but seeing as apart from Freightliner and possibly Stobart in tiny volumes, no one has ever managed to integrate proper road/rail movements well enough to reduce road haulage sensibly, how long do you really think it will take to build in any meaningful volume?
Its possible new tracked roads could be built for autonomous vehicles, but where exactly are they going to put the marshalling yards big enough to cope with the thousands of drivers needed to shunt those vehicles from each terminal at the start and finish of each journey, you’ll need yards a mile square with appropriate housing and infrastructure in reasonable commuting room, and all this in a country where land is at a premium as constant immigration fills the place up.
If the vehicle drives itself on those tracked roads with a driver on board for start and finish of journey, that’s about as much as they can hope for and thats at least a generation away.
Not as any of this matters, the looming economic disaster (that will make 2008 look easy) will put this on the back burner for another generation and probably far longer when the money to burn stops.
Anyone who drives a truck can see what the problem is when it comes to congestion and it’s not trucks !!! - bloody car drivers with poor lane disapline driving too fast, too close and over braking.
How many times have you been driving along a motorway and glanced to the opposite carriageway and spotted a broken down vehicle simply on the hard shoulder, cars rubber necking past slowly then further down the road is a 10 mile traffic jam.
My truck has all the gizmos, Adaptive Cruise, lane departure warning, Opticruise, collision warning, intelligent braking, bluetooth (great for surround sound, you can almost feel like your taking part in the ■■■■■■■ session). Hopefully 3D tablets will arrive soon so I can really get stuck in.
I quite like it all, makes pouring tea less of a risk.
Found the ACC will not pick up the nutters who pull in front and slam the anchors on but sometimes will slam the anchors on if not turned off when a vehicle you where following pulls off on a slip road.
Lane Departure goes off rareley due to me being able to stay within the white lines and indicating when changing lane but does give the reasurring buzzer scream (like ive got a question wrong on family fortunes) when roadworks cause lane switching or im trying to sideswipe the BMW driver I dont like the look of.
Collision warning goes off randomly for no reason, so its either faulty or I hit lots of stuff without knowing about it.
Trouble is you can get reliant on it so will go full manual mode at times just to keep me hand in.
No worries about overtaking another truck at 0.5mph as im not one of those muppets who drive on the limiter…well except on Fridays.
My lorry can’t even keep my phone connected via blue tooth most days let alone drive itself
yes. I also predict buses without conductors, car parks, petrol pumps and lifts without attendants, trains without guards vans, ticket collectors or drivers.
Driverless cars coming in ,soon be no need for taxi drivers ya beauty lol
all it will take for a total shutdown. my jobs safe.
merc0447:
[zb] your robot trucks ya [zb] [zb]
Amen! Given me an ERF, 3 sheets and a mile of rope any day of the week! (Am I doing it right?)
Euro:
yes. I also predict buses without conductors, car parks, petrol pumps and lifts without attendants, trains without guards vans, ticket collectors or drivers.
DLR exception, but why do Trains still need a Driver, for the same reason that a truck will have a driver, someone to pin the blame on when it goes wrong. Imagine the law suit when the inevitable fatality happens, is the operator responsible, or maybe the manufacturer, or does the software supplier take the responsibility. The lawyers are rubbing there hands together already 
Reading up on this there will be a convoy of 10 trucks going to a single destination,so how many places order 10 trailers full of stuff from a single place to be delivered in one go?
Also what happens what the 10 trucks come to a set of lights and the convoy gets spilt into 3 with cars in between?
Will you lot stop trying to throw spanners into the works!
I’m sure the boffins have thought of all of this and it’s going to work seamlessly!
But when the trial starts, we better get the popcorn order in early, as I think we’re going to need a lot, maybe 10 trucks worth! 
Also in the Mail last week, report of a Google driverless SUV already being tried in California that collided with a bus, seems it changed lanes assuming the bus would give way to it! Oh, hang on though, not much different to some cars with drivers in!
Bernard
There will be as much takeup at best of this daft idea - as there is takeup of the M6 Toll. 
Scientists will be implanting computers into people’s heads - before they get a computer to drive a vehicle on every and any road!
Evil8Beezle:
Will you lot stop trying to throw spanners into the works!
I’m sure the boffins have thought of all of this and it’s going to work seamlessly!But when the trial starts, we better get the popcorn order in early, as I think we’re going to need a lot, maybe 10 trucks worth!
Thing is, some of us drivers have science qualifications. How many boffins have driving qualifications though? 
Winseer:
Evil8Beezle:
Will you lot stop trying to throw spanners into the works!
I’m sure the boffins have thought of all of this and it’s going to work seamlessly!But when the trial starts, we better get the popcorn order in early, as I think we’re going to need a lot, maybe 10 trucks worth!
Thing is, some of us drivers have science qualifications. How many boffins have driving qualifications though?
We do, and we just know it’s going to go ■■■■!
ajt:
Anyone who drives a truck can see what the problem is when it comes to congestion and it’s not trucks !!! - bloody car drivers with poor lane disapline driving too fast, too close and over braking.How many times have you been driving along a motorway and glanced to the opposite carriageway and spotted a broken down vehicle simply on the hard shoulder, cars rubber necking past slowly then further down the road is a 10 mile traffic jam.
+1