> This industry literally won’t even pay for chassis they desperately need (and chassis are really cheap compared to trucks), doesn’t want to pay its workers, but they are supposedly going to pay for millions of robot trucks
Interesting perspective on autonomous freight. Even if self-driving trucks become technologically viable in the coming years, their economic viability may still significantly trail that of personal autonomous vehicles.
The article mentioned something about the company being liable for anything that happens if there is no driver. At first that didn't sound quite right to me, aren't they already liable to that degree? Then I remembered contractors etc.
I do think, having a human in the loop who's life is on the line in any accident, will tend to be more creative in avoiding one than software would be.
Training an AI to avoid simulated accidents is not a complete solution. For one thing, there will always be novel situations not trained for, and for another, the AI has no visceral fear of its own death.
The thing is, self-driving trucks seem more plausible as something technologically viable compared to self-driving passenger cars. I've heard proposals to have loading docks directly off major highways, so the only driving the things would need to do would on highways (and even in special lanes). At the same time, I wonder what the advantage of this over just trains would be.
Also, "when a person isn’t on board, the company is on the hook for everything that goes on in that truck." Having a driver is a way of offloading risk.
A long time ago when I was in high school (late 1970's), I knew some kids whose father was a truck driver. They were better off financially than my family (my dad was a high school teacher/councilor). I asked one of them about it and learned that his dad earned twice as much as mine. (My father had a Masters degree and 35 years of tenure.)
Times have certainly changed since then. The trucking industry is now rife with exploitation.
Never forget - labor shortages are actually always wage shortages. Especially in the tech industry. Start paying programmers a more reasonable share of the millions in profits we generate and your hiring problems will magically disappear.
You cannot magic up good programmers by paying more money.
It is a complete system, starting when education starts. It does require proper pay (the missing piece of the truck driver problem) but computing (and other creative technical professions) require aptitude and training!
That requires long term planning and educating the population.
I think this is true regarding truckers, as there seems to be many people who can drive trucks but choose not to. If they got paid more, they would drive (the author suggests, and I agree).
But is it true for programmers? Are there many people who can code but choose not to, but would if the pay was higher? That seems less likely.
I was an OTR truck driver for a year for a big company called Prime. This was like a decade ago.
I made around 44 grand in a year for around 60 to 80 hours a week of work.
You get paid 'per mile' but you spend many hours at docks unloading. There were constantly times I would wait in a dock all day to unload and since the truck wasn't moving, that was considered my 'time off'. Then they would finally unload you and you would have been considered to have rested 8 hours and have to drive 10 more hours even though you didn't sleep because you were waiting for your name to be called to unload.
On the upside, got to see a lot of cool stuff around the country and driving those big trucks was badass.
I was on bad terms with my dispatcher because if I got someplace early I would spend that extra time sightseeing instead of delivering the load early.
After a while, being away from home sucked massively because you have such little time off in those big companies.
I think that was a 'paying your dues' type job and if I stuck at it there are better trucking jobs out there.
Tech hasn't been a walk in the park but it at least pays really well.
> The trucking industry would quickly find out the same thing Uber found out about their self-driving cars, which is that when a person isn’t on board, the company is on the hook for everything that goes on in that truck.
Drivers do a lot more than just get the vehicle from Point A to Point B, whether the cargo is alive or not.
It seems to me that forcing reasonable labor practices on the industry might improve efficiency. For example, if freight companies don’t pay their truckers for loading and unloading time, then they have very limited incentive to reduce loading and unloading time. If this time started costing the industry even an extra $15/hr, that might give a substantial incentive to optimize.
First, I think trucks are a super important chain in our economy. Second, after reading this why do this? The only reason businesses can get truckers is that there are willing truckers to do it. Why not just quit? He clearly laid out that $25/hr is about the max you can get / $20 after costs is more realistic (pretax wtf?) - and there is no overtime. If I was in this situation, I would wake up, think of ways to not do this the entire day. I had shit jobs. The most important part of a shit job is know you are in a shit job - and to escape. At those rates I could just serve tables at AppleBees, crush $25/hr and get free food - also leave my car Turo'ed in the lot.
Not discounting the author's experience, but it doesn't mirror my own. It's probably highly, highly dependent upon the company you work for. My father drove OTR for a certain brown courier service, and made about 150k a year. This was about 15 years ago. You did have to be gone for a whole week at a time, so certainly not easy or for everyone, but the pay was quite nice.
> Second, after reading this why do this? The only reason businesses can get truckers is that there are willing truckers to do it. Why not just quit?
Part of it is because a lot of truckers are owner-operators that have a lot of money in their trucks. They are effectively employees, not real contractors, and all the pricing power goes to the company that hires them but if they quit it means bankruptcy.
It turns out that $20/hr is really good for blue collar work in most of the US. It beats e.g. serving at Applebee's (except the bartender) by probably about a factor of 2, especially if you're not young and charismatic.
If you're in a big city, you might be able to demand a bit more than this. Most truck drivers aren't, and don't want to be.
Because poverty and lack of economic options. There’s a reason trucking turned into a race to the bottom after the decline of unionization and deregulation of the industry.
I think it is a bit unfair to be blaming the issues on truckers for not quitting. Our other industries get legal protections that ensure fair wage practices, we should extend those protections to truck driver.
We, as a nation, need these drivers. We have an obligation to extend them same wage protections we have. Even if some truck driver can and do make quite good money, that doesn't mean that the industry as a whole isn't rife with abusive labor practices.
> The industry is willfully blind to the situation. It wants people to work massive hours for virtually no pay, blames the workers if they don’t work for free, and then threatens the workers with having no job at all if they don’t submit to these conditions. Then it wonders why people won’t go to school to get a job the industry itself says won’t be around in five years. Again, self-inflicted. This industry literally won’t even pay for chassis they desperately need (and chassis are really cheap compared to trucks), doesn’t want to pay its workers, but they are supposedly going to pay for millions of robot trucks in an amount to drive freight rates down to nothing for everybody.
Why personify “The industry” and make odd statements about it? Why is there no recognition for the actual systemic economic reasons for the issues?
For a comparison from New Zealand, my friend quit professional work to become a truck driver. It took a short amount of training to get the drivers licence. She got an entry level job that pays a little over minimum wage, but it is hourly and she gets paid for her hours. Minimum wage soon becomes NZD21 (≈ USD15/hour). However the cost of many things is much higher in New Zealand so the hourly rates are not comparable (a Big Mac Combo meal is ≈USD9 in NZ, a Big Mac Meal is ≈USD6 in the US?). The standard of living is fairly good in NZ.
"However the cost of many things is much higher in New Zealand so the hourly rates are not comparable (a Big Mac Combo meal is ≈USD9 in NZ, a Big Mac Meal is ≈USD6 in the US?). The standard of living is fairly good in NZ."
Not sure McDonald's is a good way to compare. Crappy food is very cheap in the US but good food can be quite expensive. When I visit family in Germany I often feel it's the other way there. Good, but basic food is quite cheap but stuff like Mcdonalds costs more.
"Truck drivers, farm workers, and restaurant staff are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)."
Not the bleakest [1], but yeah, bleak. Long, lonely, boring, life-sucking, thankless hours. Essential, yet at the Bottom of the 'skilled' totem-pole. Mostly these people are heros, and our lives are dependent on their sacrifices. (Many heavy-equipment drivers are 'skilled' enough to make much more - but working conditions are similar).
FLSA created in 1938 (end of Depression) by US Congress. Same body that has left minimum wage at $7.25 for 13 years. The best in the OECD (Australia) is US$12.9 (much more in line with purchasing power.)
Having a universal law would soon hit into some huge structural problems. Maybe rail actually is more efficient?
Maybe cheap prison labour isn’t the best way to do things? Maybe massive too management wages while the bottom tier get less than a living wage is bad?
Oddly the truckers who are paid a salary are Armed forces. I would be interested in knowing how the economics of army logistics compares to commercial - and if the comparisons take this article into account?
Well, I was a truck driver during the last Iraq invasion hauling fuel for the 3rd ID.
Got like 9 hours of sleep the first week of the war. Every single truck in the company had “red line” issues but if would run we ran it, we had one where the whole electrical harness caught on fire that couldn’t be shut down and we ran that too. Had to “reallocate” parts from other units who were stupid enough to leave their equipment unguarded. And random firefights, shit blowing up, bases getting overrun around us all the time.
Forgot what an E-5 made in ‘03, a lot less than my civilian truck driver job at the time.
Are you talking about actually military MOS truck drivers, or the contractors? If actual MOS-it will depend where it located, but generally military work is 24\7 work without any side income. Spend week in the field with no shower? Work a year in a war zone? Driver fuel if the middle of nowhere and freeze your ass while waiting for special tow truck because no adequate heating in the cab? If you like those-you welcome to join.
[+] [-] mortenjorck|4 years ago|reply
Interesting perspective on autonomous freight. Even if self-driving trucks become technologically viable in the coming years, their economic viability may still significantly trail that of personal autonomous vehicles.
[+] [-] elefanten|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spfzero|4 years ago|reply
I do think, having a human in the loop who's life is on the line in any accident, will tend to be more creative in avoiding one than software would be.
Training an AI to avoid simulated accidents is not a complete solution. For one thing, there will always be novel situations not trained for, and for another, the AI has no visceral fear of its own death.
[+] [-] joe_the_user|4 years ago|reply
The thing is, self-driving trucks seem more plausible as something technologically viable compared to self-driving passenger cars. I've heard proposals to have loading docks directly off major highways, so the only driving the things would need to do would on highways (and even in special lanes). At the same time, I wonder what the advantage of this over just trains would be.
[+] [-] cproctor|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsnodlin|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] anonymousiam|4 years ago|reply
Times have certainly changed since then. The trucking industry is now rife with exploitation.
[+] [-] trelane|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ta988|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] faangiq|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] worik|4 years ago|reply
You cannot magic up good programmers by paying more money.
It is a complete system, starting when education starts. It does require proper pay (the missing piece of the truck driver problem) but computing (and other creative technical professions) require aptitude and training!
That requires long term planning and educating the population.
[+] [-] ghiculescu|4 years ago|reply
But is it true for programmers? Are there many people who can code but choose not to, but would if the pay was higher? That seems less likely.
[+] [-] aahortwwy|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edmcnulty101|4 years ago|reply
I made around 44 grand in a year for around 60 to 80 hours a week of work.
You get paid 'per mile' but you spend many hours at docks unloading. There were constantly times I would wait in a dock all day to unload and since the truck wasn't moving, that was considered my 'time off'. Then they would finally unload you and you would have been considered to have rested 8 hours and have to drive 10 more hours even though you didn't sleep because you were waiting for your name to be called to unload.
On the upside, got to see a lot of cool stuff around the country and driving those big trucks was badass.
I was on bad terms with my dispatcher because if I got someplace early I would spend that extra time sightseeing instead of delivering the load early.
After a while, being away from home sucked massively because you have such little time off in those big companies.
I think that was a 'paying your dues' type job and if I stuck at it there are better trucking jobs out there.
Tech hasn't been a walk in the park but it at least pays really well.
[+] [-] black6|4 years ago|reply
Drivers do a lot more than just get the vehicle from Point A to Point B, whether the cargo is alive or not.
[+] [-] amluto|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thaumasiotes|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ransom1538|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Johnny555|4 years ago|reply
I've worked in a restaurant and worked in construction, (didn't drive a truck, but I rode along with the truckers to haul equipment).
If I had to choose between working at Applebees or driving a truck, I'd definitely pick the truck.
[+] [-] silisili|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alasdair_|4 years ago|reply
Part of it is because a lot of truckers are owner-operators that have a lot of money in their trucks. They are effectively employees, not real contractors, and all the pricing power goes to the company that hires them but if they quit it means bankruptcy.
[+] [-] amalcon|4 years ago|reply
If you're in a big city, you might be able to demand a bit more than this. Most truck drivers aren't, and don't want to be.
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shkkmo|4 years ago|reply
We, as a nation, need these drivers. We have an obligation to extend them same wage protections we have. Even if some truck driver can and do make quite good money, that doesn't mean that the industry as a whole isn't rife with abusive labor practices.
[+] [-] zeroonetwothree|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mynameishere|4 years ago|reply
He clearly laid out a lie. That's your answer. Go from driving box trucks to chemicals to driving your own rig and it can get to 200/year.
[+] [-] robocat|4 years ago|reply
Why personify “The industry” and make odd statements about it? Why is there no recognition for the actual systemic economic reasons for the issues?
For a comparison from New Zealand, my friend quit professional work to become a truck driver. It took a short amount of training to get the drivers licence. She got an entry level job that pays a little over minimum wage, but it is hourly and she gets paid for her hours. Minimum wage soon becomes NZD21 (≈ USD15/hour). However the cost of many things is much higher in New Zealand so the hourly rates are not comparable (a Big Mac Combo meal is ≈USD9 in NZ, a Big Mac Meal is ≈USD6 in the US?). The standard of living is fairly good in NZ.
For a great and geek-humourous take on the benefits of truck driving, I love this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQXVgniI-hw although he explains why he quit mid 2021 due to similar reasons as the OP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk8AnMzhZZE
[+] [-] spaetzleesser|4 years ago|reply
Not sure McDonald's is a good way to compare. Crappy food is very cheap in the US but good food can be quite expensive. When I visit family in Germany I often feel it's the other way there. Good, but basic food is quite cheap but stuff like Mcdonalds costs more.
[+] [-] lostcolony|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwithington|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8bitsrule|4 years ago|reply
Not the bleakest [1], but yeah, bleak. Long, lonely, boring, life-sucking, thankless hours. Essential, yet at the Bottom of the 'skilled' totem-pole. Mostly these people are heros, and our lives are dependent on their sacrifices. (Many heavy-equipment drivers are 'skilled' enough to make much more - but working conditions are similar).
FLSA created in 1938 (end of Depression) by US Congress. Same body that has left minimum wage at $7.25 for 13 years. The best in the OECD (Australia) is US$12.9 (much more in line with purchasing power.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Sta...
[+] [-] lostlogin|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] after_care|4 years ago|reply
* Tip workers
* Gig workers
* Undocumented workers
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] UncleEntity|4 years ago|reply
Got like 9 hours of sleep the first week of the war. Every single truck in the company had “red line” issues but if would run we ran it, we had one where the whole electrical harness caught on fire that couldn’t be shut down and we ran that too. Had to “reallocate” parts from other units who were stupid enough to leave their equipment unguarded. And random firefights, shit blowing up, bases getting overrun around us all the time.
Forgot what an E-5 made in ‘03, a lot less than my civilian truck driver job at the time.
[+] [-] Nikbul|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] travisporter|4 years ago|reply