Posted on 06/26/2019 5:53:00 AM PDT by Moonman62
Starsky Robotics is now testing autonomous trucks that have no driver inside, the San Francisco Bay Area startup announced on Wednesday.
As of June 16, Starsky began operating truly driverless semi-trucks on the Florida turnpike.
It's a first in the industry. To be sure, there are plenty of autonomous trucks on the road. TuSimple has a fleet of more than 50 trucks making three to five revenue-generating routes per day in Arizona. Waymo resumed testing its self-driving trucks in Phoenix, after ending the tests two years ago. Embark's trucks drove more than 124,000 automated miles last year. And Tesla has been spotted testing some autonomous semis.
But these companies still have at least two people in the cabin for safety purposes — usually two truck drivers or a trucker and an engineer. Starksy's trucks have neither.
That is, the trucks do have a driver. It's just that he or she is remotely controlling the vehicle, and several others, as many as 500 miles away.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Attack of the drone trucks.
What can go wrong ?
So, when the inevitable fatalities occur, who gets sued, the trucking company, the truck builders, or the software company?
I bet there are lawyers out there right now building cases.
Automatic systems have the capability to respond better to the craziness of other drivers.
When fatality rates turn out to be much lower will the news media report it?
No.
A killer robot has much better news potential than “safest form of transportation per highway mile.” Just like airliner crashes get far more headlines than airliner safety.
But I don’t think that will be a problem for a while.
How do these vehicles manage unexpected police guided detours caused by accidents?
Nothing.. its only loaded with up to 44,000 lbs of stuff driving next to your sons, daughters, wives and husbands.
Snow, ice, fog, other camera problems won’t be a problem.
Perfectly safe.
“Automatic systems have the capability to respond better to the craziness of other drivers.”
And zero ability to respond to out of context problems, which they will encounter.
They don’t have to be perfectly safe. They just have to be safer than human drivers. That’s not too difficult.
Doing it this way is a good idea. It means the “Driver” can pull over when a cop tells him to.
The lawyers shall feast.
The money quote:
“It’s just that he or she is remotely controlling the vehicle, and several others...”
The “several others” part is also a big deal. You could have one driver “monitoring” a reasonable number of trucks and with sensors and video, take “control” of one when something out of the ordinary happens.
So, when the inevitable fatalities occur, who gets sued, the trucking company, the truck builders, or the software company?
How do these vehicles manage unexpected police guided detours caused by accidents?
“So, when the inevitable fatalities occur, ...”
C’mon man, airplanes are all flown by computer today. It isn’t like 737s are falling out of the sky! /s
And zero ability to respond to out of context problems, which they will encounter.
...
Can you give an example of an out of context problem and the rate at which it will occur?
Will the rate be greater than the human accident rate?
I want my flying car! I was promised a flying car by now.
What a great idea, in FL with all those crazy FL drivers.
First accident, the company will be sued out of existence.
Yes
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