Adaptive cruise is on, keeping us at just the right speed for traffic conditions. Lane sense is auto-correcting if it thinks I’m too close to the lane line. Thinking we’re halfway to self-driving cars already; projecting what might come next, I settle on the trucking industry. We don’t need trucks that can make every decision on their own to drive all across the country. All we need is a truck that will follow another truck on the freeway. Imagine a freight train rolling down the tracks, but in this case it’s a truck in front with several trucks behind, all programmed to follow the truck in front, rolling down the highway. Self-driving reaction time is so fast, the trucks wouldn’t have to be very far apart. They could be close like railcars, but without an actual physical coupling.
There would have to be a low-limit on how many trucks could convoy together though, or they would eliminate too many driving opportunities for cars on the road with them. Either that, or they would need to be programmed to stay far enough apart that car traffic could merge in and out of their lanes between them to get to and from exits.
This would be tough on the truck driver industry though. It would only take one driver to manage a three or four or five truck train. I can think of one application though that truck drivers would probably be glad to get out of. It’s that barrier truck that follows along behind road crews. The one with the extended collapsible barrier designed to absorb an impact before it gets to the workers in front. Probably everyone would be glad for that to be a driverless truck that could just be programmed to follow along behind the crew and protect them, without actually putting a driver at risk.
Just wandering thoughts.
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