Self-Driving Trucks Are Going to Hit Us Like a Human-Driven Truck

[workinclasszero]

Self-Driving Trucks Are Going to Hit Us Like a Human-Driven Truck
The imminent need for basic income in recognition of our machine-driven future
Scott Santens

It should be clear at a glance just how dependent the American economy is on truck drivers. According to the American Trucker Association, there are 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the US, and an additional 5.2 million people employed within the truck-driving industry who don’t drive the trucks. That’s 8.7 million trucking-related jobs.

We can’t stop there though, because the incomes received by these 8.2 million people create the jobs of others. Those 3.5 million truck drivers driving all over the country stop regularly to eat, drink, rest, and sleep. Entire businesses have been built around serving their wants and needs. Think restaurants and motels as just two examples. So now we’re talking about millions more whose employment depends on the employment of truck drivers. But we still can’t even stop there.

Those working in these restaurants and motels along truck-driving routes are also consumers within their own local economies. Think about what a server spends her paycheck and tips on in her own community, and what a motel maid spends from her earnings into the same community. That spending creates other paychecks in turn. So now we’re not only talking about millions more who depend on those who depend on truck drivers, but we’re also talking about entire small town communities full of people who depend on all of the above in more rural areas. With any amount of reduced consumer spending, these local economies will shrink.

Truck driving is just about the last job in the country to provide a solid middle class salary without requiring a post-secondary degree. Truckers are essentially the last remnant of an increasingly impoverished population once gainfully employed in manufacturing before those middle income jobs were mostly all shipped overseas.

https://medium.com/basic-income/self-driving-trucks-are-going-to-hit-us-like-a-human-driven-truck-b8507d9c5961#.3vz68i93n

[CK_John]

1. K&R

[HassleCat]

2. Not what it used to be.

With the decline of unions, most drivers are paid by the mile, not by the hour. This means they have incentives to drive too fast, drive too Manu hours, etc. And it doesn't pay all that well anymore.

[metalbot]

3. I don't think anyone is denying what the impact will be

I just haven't seen compelling discussions about what to do. Ban the technology to save jobs? Retrain truck drivers as...machine learning developers?

The technology is already here. It's the response that matters.

One model I could envision in the short term is that trucks drive themselves from town to town, but drivers take over for delivery. It has the advantage of taking driving from a long haul job to a "live with your family" job, but likely at the expense of wages.

[MADem]

4. For a while, anyway, even self-driving trucks will have operators.

In future, I suspect that a self-driving truck with "operator" will be like a shepherd, guiding three or four trucks behind it in a convoy.

We can eschew the technology, but it's really like being back in the beginning of the last century, trying to ignore the advent of the horseless carriage.

[SubjectiveLife78]

8. And we're the horse

[MADem]

10. Well, even horses needed cart men.

And wheelwrights, and blacksmiths, etc. To say nothing of someone to grow the oats, and make the buggy whips.

There will be a new paradigm that rises up as a consequence of these jobs--it could be that there are fewer drivers on the road, or it could be that there are MORE TRUCKS on the road, with fewer "overseers" who manage three or more vehicles. If they go to the "more trucks" paradigm, I would hope that they limit their presence to after 9 pm and before 6 am--that way they wouldn't be screwing with commuter traffic--at least until they figure out a way to construct purpose-built lanes for truck traffic only.

If we turned our backs on progress, we'd still be shovelling horseshit off the driveway and going to bed at eight thirty to save lamp oil. Times are changing, and we can either jump in with both feet and help figure it all out, or run from it and watch it catch up to us and trample us. We're not stopping it, and a job - protecting POV isn't going to cut it.

[2naSalit]

5. Not only that...

everything you have in your daily life... unless you produced it, the tools to make it and the raw materials your self, it came to you on a truck.

I'm glad I don't drive as much as I used to and I live way over here. Used to drive 18-wheelers... wonder how those things will do on ice or a major snowstorm or severe cold. Might be a lot of non-mobile trucks blocking roads all of a sudden-like. I can see the accident reports now.

[Cicada]

6. Rifkin 1995 "The End of Work" discusses solutions

He said govt and nonprofits would need to expand hiring. In the depression my 14 year old dad joined "Civilian Conservation Corps" and his group planted a million trees in Nevada. There are useful jobs the market fails to produce. But we will need to overcome the extreme market-only religion to solve this problem.

[Sherman A1]

7. Precisely

You hit the nail on the head....But we will need to overcome the extreme market-only religion to solve this problem.

[SubjectiveLife78]

9. One vast and ecumenical holding company