Automated vehicles are often in the news at the moment, and according to an FT article, truckers in the US are feeling increasingly under threat from driverless vehicles. How will this affect UK driving jobs?
The article says that vehicles like the Daimler Freightliner are capable of being remotely piloted from a control room when the vehicle is in an urban area. It can then run totally unaided while on motorways, with the remote pilots resuming control while closing in on the destination.
While the technology to do this may be plausible and improving all the time, I think it’s an exaggeration to say that all driving jobs will be automated in the foreseeable future. Firstly and most obviously, there's the trust issue. A machine cannot mimic the savvy and common sense that an experienced driver offers. Good drivers predict problems, adapt to conditions and offer a personalised service.
On similar lines, insurance is likely to be a huge barrier to automated lorries. The risk of the technology failing while piloting a 7.5t truck is likely to put most logistics firms off. When something goes wrong, the human tragedy could be huge and the resulting negative press could cause long terms problems for all parties involved.
Geography also comes into play. Although the US clearly has hugely populated areas, it is also a much larger country with bigger, more spacious freeways outside of the urban sprawl. You can imagine a driverless truck travelling across Utah or Wyoming. It's harder to have confidence in a driverless lorry navigating Embankment on a Friday afternoon.
We may one day witness the rise of driverless lorries. But while the technology is still so new and the importance of the job so great, I think it's unlikely to happen anytime soon.