The first road-legal self-driving truck

[Deleted]

Source: http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/05/...driving-truck/

Last night, on the Hoover Dam, Freightliner (which is owned by automotive giant Daimler) unveiled the first road-legal self-driving truck. At the event last night, the Inspiration Truck (yes really) was awarded an official autonomous vehicle license plate by the governor of Nevada.
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The lorry has the same "NHTSA Level 3" rating as Google's self-driving car, which means that it's fully autonomous, but that the driver still has to be able to take over "with sufficiently comfortable transition time" if the need arises. In this case, while the Inspiration Truck could drive itself for hundreds of miles without driver intervention, Daimler is framing this as a conversation around driver fatigue. According to Daimler, 90 percent of truck crashes are due to driver error, and driver fatigue plays a role in 1/8th of those crashes.

Wolfgang Bernhard, head of Daimler's truck company, said at the event last night that the company tested driver brain activity with and without the autonomous driving system enabled. With the system turned on, "driver drowsiness decreases by about 25 percent."

[Raptor With a Saber]

.....This brings back memories of a certain simpsons episode. Truckers all over are going to ram these things off the roads because they cause them to lose money.

[Elegiac]

This is nice, but can we focus on killing long distance trucking period?

[Conspicuous Cultist]

This is nice, but can we focus on killing long distance trucking period?

I don't see how unless we got teleporters all of the sudden and got over UPS and mail services lobbying.

[Elegiac]

I don't see how unless we got teleporters all of the sudden and got over UPS and mail services lobbying.

There is this wonderful thing called rail freight.

[fengosa]

There is this wonderful thing called rail freight.

This is the first thing that came to mind as well. I'd rather see automated traffic on rails than the highways. I suppose it depends on how safe the technology is. If accident rates are lower than human drivers it may just be a matter of getting used to it as a human.

[Kasierith]

There is this wonderful thing called rail freight.

The modern US infrastructure is not adequately designed to do this. And considering that the US is insufficient at even maintaining its roads from normal wear and tear, I don't really see the investment being put down for this. As it is, the system is very burdened and would probably not be capable of taking the reins back from highway infrastructure.

[breadisfunny]

i welcome our new driverless vehicles.

[Mentia]

Oh no! Truckers are getting replaced by computers!

[Independent voter]

The US is so big that it wouldn't be practical to put a rail depot within a hundred miles of everyone and it would tear up a lot of land. And even if you did put in the tremendous amount of rail to get within a hundred miles of everyone, you'd still need trucks to move cargo the hundred miles.

And cars can share the roads with trucks which is an added benefit, rails are for trains alone.

The amount of cargo moved by rail and truck has doubled in the last thirty years with rail moving less. But both rail and trucking are doing very well. Water born cargo is falling behind.

Problem with trucking is that you have to engineer your roads so well as to put up with all the weight of the trucks.

[StayTuned]

Oh no! Truckers are getting replaced by computers!

I fucking hope so. I always die two deaths when I have a stupid trucker pivoting his death machine halfway on the left lane because he has to scratch his balls or whatever, and doesn't pay enough attention to where his truck is actually going. Meanwhile, I'm coming at high speed from behind and don't know whether to full break, or to swerve to the right because the truck is going to keep on pivoting completely to the left lane.

No really, self driving trucks all day. I welcome them more than anything.

As long as the technology is safe and sophisticated of course.

[Flame6]

I fucking hope so. I always die two deaths when I have a stupid trucker pivoting his death machine halfway on the left lane because he has to scratch his balls or whatever, and doesn't pay enough attention to where his truck is actually going. Meanwhile, I'm coming at high speed from behind and don't know whether to full break, or to swerve to the right because the truck is going to keep on pivoting completely to the left lane.

No really, self driving trucks all day. I welcome them more than anything.

As long as the technology is safe and sophisticated of course.

Truckers are much safer drivers than the average driver. You're looking at the wrong vehicles.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications...umanfac/04085/ Trucks drive 7% of total miles drivin in the US, but are involved in 13% of all accidents, but they are only at fault 16% of the time.
The only downside, is you're much more likely to die in an accident involving a truck.

[Drungan]

It looks really good !

[StayTuned]

Truckers are much safer drivers than the average driver. You're looking at the wrong vehicles.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications...umanfac/04085/ Trucks drive 7% of total miles drivin in the US, but are involved in 13% of all accidents, but they are only at fault 16% of the time.
The only downside, is you're much more likely to die in an accident involving a truck.

That's data for US truck drivers

Come to Europe and witness some of these eastern and southern European drivers with their fucked up machines with almost no brakes. It's no joke.

Oh, it's a 60 in a road work area? Fuck it, 90 it is, gotta stick to those schedules. Breaking? Lol what breaking?

It's funny when you have a 10 tons 2 meters behind you because he confused his truck with a Porsche

[Afrospinach]

Come to Europe and witness some of these eastern and southern European drivers with their fucked up machines with almost no brakes. It's no joke.

Even worse in some other areas. In Africa we lose 10% of our fleet every year, but I can't see how a self driving truck would cope here at all.

[Wildtree]

That's data for US truck drivers

Come to Europe and witness some of these eastern and southern European drivers with their fucked up machines with almost no brakes. It's no joke.

Oh, it's a 60 in a road work area? Fuck it, 90 it is, gotta stick to those schedules. Breaking? Lol what breaking?

It's funny when you have a 10 tons 2 meters behind you because he confused his truck with a Porsche

Now don't exaggerate, much rather refer to reality.. Truckers are for once the MUCH better drivers, hands down. That's a fact from the procedures involved in obtaining the drivers license for the vehicles.
Secondly, they also abide by the laws more than the average driver.
Why?
Because they rely on their drivers license. It's their living. No license, no job. No job, no income.

Job............. Now there is the one and only real issue.
The problems with trucking comes from business. Irresponsible, unreasonable demands by the employers of the truckers, caused by just as much idiotic expectations of the contractors/customers of the trucking companies, leads to the majority of the accidents involving trucks.
If you're told to bring those 30 tons of goods to the destination 1200 miles away in 24 hours, you are primed to break the laws and turn into a safety risk for yourself and other traffic participants.
Mathematically you'd have to make a distance of 50 miles per hour. Means you'd have to drive with maintained speed of 50mph.
That sounds easy to do... Yeah... No.
You still have to stop to take breaks, you need sleep, and all the good stuff. All of a sudden you find yourself speeding, sleep deprived. And that is a recipe for disaster, given how you have a 30 tons heavy weapon under your ass..

[Nadiru]

There is this wonderful thing called rail freight.

The US has the largest rail network in the world by a wide, wide margin. There's only so many freight trains you can run, and you'll still need trucking for intrastate freight.

[Deleted]

At least in a lorry, if it does malfunction and crash into another vehicle, the other car is the one who has to worry about it.

[Wildtree]

The US has the largest rail network in the world by a wide, wide margin.

That is........ false...

by mileage yes...... But not by efficiency....
it misses heaps of connection points and crisscrossing
Compare the network sizes with the country sizes, and you see why I the correct answer is false.

[Aori]

That is........ false...

China would be number 2 and we double them.

Hell we move like 5-10 times more tonnage than all of the EU.

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by mileage yes...... But not by efficiency....
it misses heaps of connection points and crisscrossing

How do you know about efficiency? Inefficient rails are removed or abandoned. It is one of the largest money making businesses.