The Long Road to Self-Driving Trucks
Self-driving trucks are going to be a revolution – a slow one. But it’s going to take time, a lot of time until we see humans disappear from the supply chain. Drivers might actually not be the first to go. Office staff is as expensive as drivers are (some say they are more expensive) and there is little to no safety regulation on them. Companies will start cutting their white-collar workforces before the blue-collar kind really takes a hit. Blue collar might be the last to have a real job.
Dave Mercer has been driving trucks across America since 1986. He has hauled ice cream to Nevada, burgers to Oregon, and trailers to Baltimore. “It can be a rough life,” he says. “You’re away from your family a lot, and raising your kids from the road is a hard life. I’ve talked to a lot of principals on the phone. But it also provided me a good lifestyle. I drove through all the recessions and depressions and don’t recall ever slowing down.”
