Current Event

Current event regarding self driving trucks

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Nearly 500,000 trucking accidents occur each year in America and of these around 5,000 result in fatalities.  Road accidents happen from many different reasons but one main cause is Human error. If the human part of the equation is removed would the result be fewer accidents? Many companies are now testing the possibility of having self-driving trucks. Although now there are many unresolved issues, researchers say that in the long run it will be safer and less costly. “This system often drives better than I do,” says Greg Murphy, who’s been a professional truck driver for 40 years. He now serves as a safety backup driver during tests of self-driving trucks by Otto, a San Francisco company that outfits trucks with the equipment needed to drive themselves.The technology used is a called a lidar system, which uses a pulsed laser to amass detailed data about the truck’s surroundings. This may seem to just resemble the issues with self driving cars; however, self driving trucks has much more economic drive than driver-less cars. Driver-less trucks can coordinate their movements to platoon closely together over long stretches of highway, cutting down on wind drag and saving on fuel. The problems facing these companies are being able to provide the technology that can handle the truck the same as or even better than a professional driver with years of experience, in varying road conditions and what not. The other issue is the 1.7 million truckers who would be potentially out of a job should this new advancement take place. It is pointed out however that this technology is far from taking over the market but it should prove to be controversial as it develops and comes forward. While these trucks have no human at the wheel, humans are still involved in the process. Otto makes it clear that it will be at least a decade before they can provide a truck that can completely drive itself with no human involvement or supervision.