I feel for the millions upon millions of truck drivers who will eventually see themselves out of work once automation takes over entirely. Will society provide for these men and women, most of which have no other formal training or educational past high school.
Truck Driver is the most common job in almost every state in the union, by the way.
The landscape of trucking is rapidly changing as it is. The average age of a truck driver today is 58. Many will retire within the next decade. There is already a driver shortage as it is and that gap will widen as the older drivers retire and the younger generations don’t want to be gone from their families for a week at a time so they don’t take these jobs. What’s left? Automation.
If the average age is 58 by the time true driverless trucks are readily available they will mostly have left the industry so automation will have little to no impact on the older generation of truck drivers.
What’s more concerning economy wise is the hours of service switch to electronic logs later this year. Say bye-bye to Owner Operators…they won’t be able to exist with electronic logs. Also, supply for available freight shipments will go down and demand will stay the same or even likely increase which means rates should skyrocket for most every shipper. That means higher costs for the goods and services.
I feel for the millions upon millions of truck drivers who will eventually see themselves out of work once automation takes over entirely. Will society provide for these men and women, most of which have no other formal training or educational past high school.
Truck Driver is the most common job in almost every state in the union, by the way.
The landscape of trucking is rapidly changing as it is. The average age of a truck driver today is 58. Many will retire within the next decade. There is already a driver shortage as it is and that gap will widen as the older drivers retire and the younger generations don’t want to be gone from their families for a week at a time so they don’t take these jobs. What’s left? Automation.
If the average age is 58 by the time true driverless trucks are readily available they will mostly have left the industry so automation will have little to no impact on the older generation of truck drivers.
What’s more concerning economy wise is the hours of service switch to electronic logs later this year. Say bye-bye to Owner Operators…they won’t be able to exist with electronic logs. Also, supply for available freight shipments will go down and demand will stay the same or even likely increase which means rates should skyrocket for most every shipper. That means higher costs for the goods and services.