Eventually an accident will occur. Some computer failure or some unseen event causing death and destruction. Call me old fashioned, old fogey, out of date, over the hill, whatever, but I like to see a human behind the wheel. One who speaks English, can read and write and has a valid CDL. There is also one point I’d like to make. When I got a CDL for driving a tri-axel dump for a part time gig, one of the things that was stressed was for the driver to assist when witnessing an accident and there is no help yet. Also to call in to police debris and other road hazards. What will an AI driven truck do? When one breaks down, will another AI driven vehicle with robots come out to fix it or tow it away?
I can appreciate your sentiment. And yes, things never stay the same. One of the reasons they’re targeting trucking is due to the turnover and endless need for drivers - which also raises the pay (and therefore business expense). So it will, inevitably, be a target.
Self-driving trucks are an inevitability, it’s just a matter of when. While you raise a good point about an ethical responsibility to help during incidents, it’s not a primary or secondary function, it’s an outlier event that won’t change this direction - especially if the counter argument is that fewer trucking incidents will occur (due to fatigue, distractions, ILLEGALS BEING GIVEN CDL’S, etc.).
Most likely, trucking will be transformed into “last mile” drivers. Trucks automatically doing the long-haul, local drivers going to a local depot to drive loads to their final destination.
Computer failures occur less often than people failures. Also, computer drivers won't be texting or talking on the phone.