With self-driving trucks on the horizon, the thought of no one behind the wheel raises concerns about reliability, capability and, most of all, safety.
Even though companies are focusing on highway driving, autonomous trucks won’t have a human driver’s trained habit of looking 12 to 15 seconds down the road for oncoming hazards — crucial when piloting a 70-foot long, 13-foot high, 80,000-pound truck that takes twice the distance to stop than a car.
“Who’s going to insure these trucks if there’s no one driving them or if someone is just passed out in the cab sleeping?” says Norita Taylor of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which represents the heartbeat of the trucking industry: people who own their six-figure rigs and pay for them by contracting out their time.
Read the article at USA Today.
