I am all for keeping our nation well supplied with the fruits of our production labor. Whether it be hard goods or our food supply it must get from producer to consumer. I practiced that when I was over the road. Are self-driving trucks the answer?

When you look around you, do you notice anything you made yourself?

If you didn’t produce it, most likely a truck delivered it.

Truck transportation is in high demand in this country. Even more in demand are drivers. There has been a driver shortage for more than ten years. Older drivers are hanging it up and ushering in the younger crowd.

Only the younger crowd has other ideas.

There is a way around that dilemma. “We will build driverless trucks.” the authorities said. “Then we won’t need drivers,” they said.

Driverless trucks are here already, though. Even so, right now each one has a driver ready to take over if things go cockeyed.

It could be 15 years or more before we experience true driverless trucks.
But before they arrive in earnest, I have a few questions.

As a retired truck driver, I want my chosen field to succeed and live on. I’ve had a great career. I want the same for those who choose to accept the challenge.
I am not against self-driving trucks. We need them. We need reliable transportation solutions to the truck driver shortage. But…

What about winters in the frozen north?

In the beginning, most self-driving trucks will appear in the lower half of the country. They will migrate north as they become more reliable in the snowy north. Safety, of course, is the main issue.

What about wild animals randomly wandering onto the highways?

We built our nation in the animal’s territory. They were here well before man ever set foot on the land. How can the engineers’ plan for all the random wild animals that venture out on to the highway? Are these self-driving vehicles equipped with telepathy?

Will they follow detours when the road closes for an accident?

When I used to drive, I had a night run. Sometimes an accident would force the highway closed. We would have to find our way around the closure to continue to our destination. Sometimes the troopers marked the detour. Often it was not marked and we had to find our way back to the main highway.

I remember one night in particular. The road closed due to an accident a few miles down. I thought the driver in front of me knew the way, so, I followed him.

It was like the blind leading the even more blind. A bunch of us trucks wandered around in the hills of western Wisconsin for a couple of hours; so it seemed.

Finally, we squirted out from roads we had no business being on to the main highway. Think a self-driving tractor-trailer rig could find it’s own way?

Will other truckers accept self-driving trucks or consider them a threat?

There have been times when a passing truck pulled in front of me within inches of the front of my truck. I had to swerve onto the shoulder to keep him from hitting me. Was the driver too tired to pay attention? Did he have something against my company? I’ll never know for sure.

What if another driver takes umbrage at the fact, so he thinks, that self-driving trucks put others out of a job. he’s angry. He wants to damage the driver-less rig and thereby take it out of commission. He somehow causes the driver-less rig to take evasive action and it crashes.

Or does it?

Is a driver-less truck wired to handle situations such as these?

Are other motorists at risk if they cut off a self-driving vehicle?

Many times I have had four-wheelers pull in front of me leaving no margin for error. If a deer ran in front of them after they had pulled into my lane there would be no chance that I wouldn’t crash into them. In an attempt to miss the deer they usually slam on their brakes or swerve or both.

They were so close to me that even if I saw the deer run across the road in front of them and began to decelerate, an accident would be unavoidable.

Cutting off an 80,000-pound truck is not a good idea, even if nothing happens.

Are self-driving trucks able to avoid that kind of situation?

Can we teach the four-wheelers the stupidity of their actions?

How good are the sensing devices used on self-driving vehicles?

Will the sensors be able to see through snow and ice even when caked with the stuff.

I have, as have many drivers, arrived back at my terminal with my truck caked with ice. You can watch the radio antennas whip back and forth; covered in ice. It’s a wonder they don’t break.

How will the sensing devices hold up against the elements? I have read that self-driving trucks will only travel when it is safe to do so.

Who determines that?

More than once I received a dispatch order to run in some terrible weather. “The show must go on.” according to some dispatchers.

On one occasion I did have the balls to turn around and come back to the terminal.

As the captain of my ship, I refused to put the load before the safety of the public and myself.

Will a self-driving truck do that?

Are truck drivers going to lose their jobs?

Truck drivers are very much in demand right now. They will be still in demand when driver-less trucks, given the green light, begin to roll. There will never be a time when truck drivers are not needed.

Please share your comments in the section below. I welcome all comments.