# Autonomous Vehicles



## Gunz (Apr 20, 2017)

Driverless cars are inevitable, especially in congested urban areas...and who knows, some day in the not-to-distant future they might be government mandated. I enjoy driving so I'm not a big fan of this, but the potential is interesting. The ramifications both good and ill are enormous.


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## Il Duce (Apr 20, 2017)

I think this is a really interesting area too.  I've had conversations with friends who think this is way further off - because of the regulatory and legal restrictions.  I don't share their pessimism in this area.  I think the vast resources of the companies driving this change are pushing through what would otherwise be those concerns.  Generally I am mistrustful of companies being able to push through whatever they want from a regulatory perspective but I think this is an area it's going to help.

I think it will be interesting though, the idea of agency.  Technology today can make self-driving cars safer statistically than normal driving.  The thing is, those statistics take into account everyone - drunk drivers, distracted drivers, terrible drivers, etc.  I wonder if people will really be able to say they want to go from having a 5% chance of getting into a wreck to a less than 1% chance - but the catch is that less than 1% is totally out of your control.  A sensor malfunctions and you're dead - you can't do anything to be safer or prevent it.  Maybe it's cool for you, but is it cool for your kids?  How do you assess liability in those cases?  I've read some lawyers think you may have to grant machines/computers some level of being treated as a person in the eyes of the law - in order to assess liability on an individual machine basis for this type of internet of things.

I would think this could change how you design cities the world over if car ownership becomes very limited.  I mean, if you have a self-driving car - especially a super-efficient hybrid or electric car - why would you ever park it?  Instead you'd just set it on 'uber' or something while you're sleeping or at work and let it drive other people and make you money.


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## x SF med (Apr 20, 2017)

Why is the movie Demolition Man now stuck in my head?


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## Ranger Psych (Apr 20, 2017)

The best part is autonomous Trucks.

Except that currently, the only think that highway Auto-trucks have done... is highway. They didn't do point to point, they were driven onto the highway, operated for about 100 miles, then driven off the highway... by the human.

Here's an example where autonomous trucks will choke right the fuck up:






I chuckle when people are OH THEY ARE THE FUTURE YOU CANNOT STOP IT.... really, because quite a few places I have been, it'll be stopped before it even gets to the consignees property because it'll BSOD when you have to block a 4 lane 2 way street to back up, with impatient SoCal drivers zooming around you while you're trying to back into the tight confines dock...


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## Il Duce (Apr 20, 2017)

I think the investment and usage trajectory right now favors city-based citizen driving over commercial hauling.  From what I've seen the industry is driven by silicon-valley tech companies and investors looking at urban consumers.  I'm sure the commercial applications will be on the way - but I would think the danger, liability, etc. would be much more significant - especially when a lot of the regulatory battles are being won at the state level, and there might be significant legal pitfalls crossing state-borders - which I'm guessing is critical to most commercial trucking.  I would think localized delivery would still have the problem of someone doing the loading/unloading.


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## Ranger Psych (Apr 20, 2017)

Well, here's a list of what I have to do with each and every load.

Arrive as planned either within a window or specific appointment time
Check in with security, providing credentials and information for load
Move truck and trailer to location specified, which will vary 
Open doors and shift trailer axles for safe loading
Back into dock, or back into space to park trailer

Divergence:  Sometimes I move to hook up to another trailer pre-loaded, Sometimes I have to go check in with a further shipping office for confirmation of load, sometimes I just bump dock. Sometimes I bump dock and have to disconnect FROM the trailer which requires getting out, lowering landing gear on trailer, pulling 5th wheel handle (Because air-operated 5th wheel releases do not work reliably) and disconnecting 3 different cables/hoses from the trailer, then pulling forward to a 6 foot gap between my truck and trailer. Sometimes I have to move outright to a different area to park the truck and wait to be called.

Get handed papers, or get called and go into shipping office to receive papers
Reconnect and/or simply pull forward
Close trailer doors
Shift trailer axles accordingly forward/rear to accommodate weight distribution as well as legality for states being transited
Confirm trailer axles are locked in
Move to guard shack and present paperwork
Watch guard seal trailer and lock trailer myself (Seals show it was not tampered with, my lock provides the security that you can't tamper with it)
Confirm my route and any specific instructions for the load (some loads are altitude gain/loss restricted, some have high value considerations and additional tracking, etc etc etc)
Start movement.

Unloading is basically the same thing, but sometimes there is an additional step of a contracted company that does the unloading and sorting of the load, as shippers will just package all the stuff on pallets with consideration for weight for both positioning within the truck and within each pallet's construction.. which means that you can have multiple products on a single pallet, and the consignee will need it broken down into individual pallets for either what product it is, or what product and where it's going. For that, I get told how much the lumper fee is, and I have to confirm with my dispatch the amount and write a company check for the lumpers.

I would totally love to have an autopilot circa what Tesla has now. I already have an anti-collision radar on the truck (although I dislike the way this specific BRAND performs compared to others) which also interfaces with the cruise control to keep me spaced off vehicles in front, brakes if someone cuts me off and tries to brake check me, etc. An autopilot where I could still monitor things circa Pilots, take over if I need/want to, and otherwise be able to reduce my stress and overall exertion through the most time and brain numbing part of the work day, would be nice.

Full automation requires more than they can do now. The only place that I can see it being quickly and effectively adopted is primarily in Line Haul operations for full load/less than load shipments circa Reddaway, Old Dominion, Fedex/UPS/USPS, and the like. These things go to major distribution centers in a hub/spoke arrangement, and they have both the workflow and real estate already on-site for doing load swaps between power units (You pull in with doubles/triples/whatever, drop it in receiving, unhook, check in, and go hook to your new set already built to go back to where you started) that having fully automated power units would be a boon.

Except that all of those places are pretty much Teamster union gigs, and I don't know how pleased the unions will be when their drivers are reduced to being yard jockeys instead of their normal full time gigs.

Point to Point full load, or even less than load, shipments like I do now, where I pick up from basically wherever (including middle of bumfuck nowhere to move hay, wood chips, potatos, ur mum, etc) and only stop between the origination and destination for sleep and/or fuel as necessary, with just as much variability and basic "not fucking designed for 53 foot trailers and not going to be changed FOR 53 foot trailers" location design.... that's a hard sell for a full auto truck.

Plus right now they're plotting on the order of a half mil for the truck thereabouts. That's no difference between current truck cost and a driver's pay with up to 10 years of experience, for the lifetime of a truck in megafleets (around 5 years, or just shy of 500,000 miles), so the only differentiation would be that the truck would be able to run day/night year round at a reduced speed and therefore fuel economy boost. It would be beneficial, but there's so many different situations on the road that fully automated trucks just wouldn't handle well.  Sometimes I have to pull onto a 2 lane street and bring my tractor nose to nose with oncoming traffic to make them stop/back up so I can get through. Sometimes you have a complicated maneuver set due to accidents. Yearly it's winter and you may have zero visibility for regular road markings and have to go off intuition and experience to be on pavement.   I have had the ONE major sensor on my truck (Radar transciever) clog up with ice, bugs, etc. Put on multiple sensors that can get fouled, with most having little to no design nor way to clear them other than a human with a ladder, squeegie and windex?  One auto truck run through a jeruselem cricket swarm in New Mexico like I went through, would have it stranded outside of cell service with a full set of fouled sensors, and a 120$ an hour service call to come clean them from a road mechanic 4 hours away... which means you're looking at a >$2,000 bill to go clean that truck off on the side of a 2 lane road with minimal pullouts (if it didn't just foul and stop right in the roadway, to be rolled up on by the highway patrol and subsequently ticketed). 

How is it going to manage weight balance or shifting the axles to get balanced. How is it going to manage bridge weights and lengths (Cali, for example, only allows 40 feet between the rear axle on the trailer and the attachment point on the truck due to weight and maneuverability). How is it going to handle tire failures. How is it even going to pre-trip, as trucks now get inspected daily to ensure roadworthy status. How is it going to be inspected during the CMV Blitz they do yearly where DOT cops will flag you into random rest stops to inspect you. How is it going to determine what/where it should be going in a weigh station. How is it going to handle load shift and securement failures for open deck transportation. How is it going to do the checks on the load every few hours as currently mandated by DOT for open deck transports.  

We still have pilots in commercial aircraft, and there's generally a hell of a lot less interactions with anything in the air as a general rule over an entire day of flight than what occurs in a 2 hour shipment on the road.


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## Il Duce (Apr 20, 2017)

It sounds like on the commercial side if the necessary technology and regulatory stuff gets set in place - and I recognize there's a big 'if', especially when it comes to timeline - the driver is still necessary as a loader/unloader, maintainer, and troubleshooter.  It seems like a driver might even demand more pay - as they would need even more technical skills (in terms of the hardware/software in the trucks - understand there's already a lot of technical skill in the safe operation).

I wonder how analogous it is to the maritime freight business.  I read somewhere the industry was slow to adopt the standardized containers now in use.  I remember that scene in the wire (2nd season maybe?) where the longshoremen are seeing how significant the automation is in the future.  Still a manpower requirement, but a different kind.  But, in the maritime example what I read was most of the technical innovation after the initial 'these should be standard' came from operators in the industry - all the technical details of how the containers should fit together, open and close, new methods of loading/unloading. 

I wonder how much of a disconnect there will be when it comes to automation in the commercial truck industry?  I'm sure the engineers and tech folks working on autonomous cars now are very familiar with driving a POV.  But how many would really understand the unique issues of loading/unloading, parking, navigating, etc. an 18 wheeler?  I wonder if google, apple, or Peterbuilt will end up paying a million bucks to some driver who comes up with the right kind of latch or other mechanical innovation to make the system work rather than there own design teams who are focused on software and sensors?


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## Dame (Apr 20, 2017)

Where this is going to be really big is the disabilities community. People who cannot drive will no longer have to wait for taxis or accessible public transport to show up in order to go to the grocery store or the doctor.


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## AWP (Apr 20, 2017)

I thought they already had drones in NASCAR?


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## Red Flag 1 (Apr 20, 2017)

[Q


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## Ranger Psych (Apr 21, 2017)

Red Flag 1 said:


> Great video! I'll have to find you on You Tube.
> 
> Thanks for the ride along. Stay safe,P.



That's my crappy little channel. Last few months I've been too time constrained to put out anything, primarily due to company stupidity.

I cannot wait until I get my own goddamn truck and get away from mega carrier stupidity. Think Big Army vs SOF.


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## Gunz (Apr 21, 2017)

If I had the opportunity I'd go to truckin school and drive a big rig and eat at truck stops. I'm not joking. I've been in love with trucks since I was old enough to crawl. They can keep their Porsches and Mercedes Benz's. If I had money to throw around I'd buy the biggest truck I could. Right now I've got a 350 dually flatbed that can tow a Big Tex trailer or a livestock trailer full of critters with ease. But this is what dreams are made of:



If I had one of these the autonomous-vehicle people would have to pry it out of my cold dead hands.


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## Blizzard (Apr 21, 2017)

It's possible to foresee within my lifetime, a point where autonomous cars are the standard and manually driven cars, due to liabilities/"danger", etc, are relegated to a novelty position where they can only be driven on closed courses/tracks.  Elon Musk predicted this to be roughly 20 years out. 

That will be a sad day and a tragedy.

Our future:


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## Lefty375 (Apr 21, 2017)

Blizzard said:


> It's possible to foresee within my lifetime, a point where autonomous cars are the standard and manually driven cars, due to liabilities/"danger", etc, are relegated to a novelty position where they can only be driven on closed courses/tracks.  Elon Musk predicted this to be roughly 20 years out.
> 
> That will be a sad day and a tragedy.
> 
> Our future:



The future doesn't need to be so bleak, my friend. Think of how many terrible drivers won't be able to cause 3 hour + highway delays.


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## Blizzard (Apr 21, 2017)

Lefty375 said:


> The future doesn't need to be so bleak, my friend. Think of how many terrible drivers won't be able to cause 3 hour + highway delays.


The sad thing is that I can see the benefits; who hasn't had a time where they'd just like to hit auto-pilot to home.  At the same time, as kind of a gearhead, the thought of not being engaged in the driving process is a bit depressing; if for no other reason than nostalgia.  Getting a drivers license, learning to row your own gears, etc... all rights of passage.


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## Blizzard (Apr 21, 2017)

As for traffic issues, these will eventually the problem for some :

A drone carrying humans prepares to take flight in Dubai


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## Lefty375 (Apr 21, 2017)

Blizzard said:


> The sad thing is that I can see the benefits; who hasn't had a time where they'd just like to hit auto-pilot to home.  At the same time, as kind of a gearhead, the thought of not being engaged in the driving process is a bit depressing; if for no other reason than nostalgia.  Getting a drivers license, learning to row your own gears, etc... all rights of passage.



Understandable. Maybe the new right of passage will be learning how to program a machine to change gears....


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