[moylan]

i'm beginning to think that the biggest problem may now be legal.

with a driver there is someone to get a signature/payment/paperwork whilest a driverless vehicle would need something else.

who's responsible for damage inside the back of a truck when it made 3-4 deleiveries?

how easy would it be to stop and steal the contents of one of these vehicles if it can be stopped on a quiet road with a rolling roadblock?

my brother has done 90% of his work on the road in many service/delivery jobs. he reckons at least here in ireland there will always need to be somebody on board to load/unload/handle paperwork/report problems . or if not need to be it might for a long time be cheaper to be.

[checker]

The cost of a driver vs someone who sleeps in a truck and gets people to sign papers might still be a substantial cost savings. Who knows? If there needs to be a human, maybe 'truckers' end up riding along in an autonomous vehicle for low wages. Some may watch tv while others may work another job online between stops.

[protomyth]

Truckers aren't exactly making huge sums of money now. Their has been downward pressure for years. That is why so many do the fake log thing and work so many hours.

[ytNumbers]

Arranging to have someone at the destination to unload the truck is easy. Everything else could be handled by someone at the central office using Skype video or similar. Having a human along for the ride is a huge waste of time and money.

[malandrew]

True, but automating the driving part goes a long way to making the driver irrelevant. Instead of having someone from the shipping company spend 60 hours a week with a truck, they trucking company now just needs someone in each destination to meet with the truck for a few hours a couple times a week. And even that will only be necessary until that is automated as well.

The driving is the skilled labor. Handling the load/unload/handle and paperwork/report issues costs a lot less labor-wise