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- cross-posted to:
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill to require human drivers on board self-driving trucks, a measure that union leaders and truck drivers said would save hundreds of thousands of jobs in the state.
The legislation vetoed Friday night would have banned self-driving trucks weighing more than 10,000 pounds (4,536 kilograms) — ranging from UPS delivery vans to massive big rigs — from operating on public roads unless a human driver is on board.
Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, head of the California Labor Federation, said driverless trucks are dangerous and called Newsom’s veto shocking. She estimates that removing drivers would cost a quarter million jobs in the state.
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I may sound cynical, but protecting jobs is hardly ever a good argument for blocking new technology in my opinion. You’re at best delaying the inevitable. Society is more likely better off learning early how to use the workforce for new and better tasks. Of course, this needs a healthy and working society, so I of course understand the individual concerns.
Safety on the other hand is a very valid reason to hold back new technology.
Definitely agree with that, but the tech is definitely not there to handle all situations, and as long as that’s the case, a human should be there. He should’ve signed the law, and if self driving actually becomes viable enough they could repeal it then
Definitely agree with that, but the tech is definitely not there to handle all situations, and as long as that’s the case, a human should be there.
I disagree. I think the bar should be “safer than a human.” If our bar were “perfect,” self driving would never be permitted without a human at the wheel.
I’m not really talking about avoiding accidents, I’m talking about what happens after something goes wrong (accident, flat tyre, load gets loose, whatever). Who’s going to deal with that? Does the company need to send someone to unblock traffic? What’s the SLA on that? What if the unblocking guy is stuck in traffic?
We’re talking about big rigs here, there’s already rarely anything a driver can do to “deal with” something like a load coming loose or a flat tire anyways. All you can really do is hope you’ve noticed the problem soon enough to get off the highway, which is obviously something that an AI would be better at with its many sensors and lack of distractability.
Even in situations where the truck ends up stuck in the middle lane of a big freeway, it’s not like the driver can just get out and push it off to the side of the road. Except for a few pretty rare cases, all the driver does is set up some pylons and then sit in the sleeper and wait for the heavy duty tow truck to show up.
Gotcha. These companies have teams of support personnel which are despatched when accidents and issues occur.
As long as it doesn’t become another externality that places the expenses on the government/taxpayer, I’m okay with it. Someone in this thread mentioned there are teams to handle situations like that, and they sounds like enough for me.
That is what we do when human drivers run into issues and block traffic, why would it need to be different for automated vehicles?
They already have all kinds of regulatory requirements around safety.
This was pretty clearly intended to make it harder to transition away from human drivers when human drivers don’t make anything safer.
Yes a human supervisor should be there for safety during testing, not to save jobs.
I may have misunderstood, but afaik it’s still not generally allowed to use self driving trucks - each case / technology will need permission. Those are the once that should be withdrawn when necessary due to safety concerns, instead of giving a blanket ban on the technology for workforce protection reasons.
Thing is, the folks that are pushing these technologies don’t give rip about safety OR jobs, just profits. The government should be considering all these things, they mostly are concerned about getting re-elected and scoring culture war partisan points. Tech doesn’t work in a vacuum. It is naive and dangerous to think is neutral.
I disagree that having a human there would actually help resolve any safety issues. Either the tech is ready or it’s not. Putting a human in the impossible position of needing to suddenly override the machine after hours of nothing happening is not the solve.
Yep, don’t need to protect the job. Just keep paying the person replaced by the robot.
I’ll bet a human in the mix is more likely to cause an accident. In either case, saving jobs this way seems like a really dumb idea. 
Autonomous vehicles apparently lull human drivers into a state of comfort very quickly, I imagine that the “human drivers” wouldn’t be alert and ready to prevent a tragedy.
I don’t know how I feel about the push for autonomous vehicles. But I know from working with professional drivers that it totally wrecks the human body.
Just let statistics tell the story. If autonomous vehicles are overall safer on the road, that is your answer.
Is there any statement as to why it was vetoed?
Yes, in the linked article.
In a statement announcing that he would not sign the bill, the Democratic governor said additional regulation of autonomous trucks was unnecessary because existing laws are sufficient.
Newsom pointed to 2012 legislation that allows the state Department of Motor Vehicles to work with the California Highway Patrol, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration “and others with relevant expertise to determine the regulations necessary for the safe operation of autonomous vehicles on public roads.”
Good.
