Don't forget what happens when people find out they can abuse driverless vehicles. Cutting them off, getting closer to them, slowing down in front of them, etc. God knows what commuters will do to them in the Boston area.
> Cutting them off, getting closer to them, slowing down in front of them, etc.
My brother is a lorry driver who frequently crosses the Turkish - Bulgarian border with his truck (as in once every 2 weeks). Once or twice he caught refugees (or whatever you want to call them) trying to get inside his trailer by cutting through the thick textile material that covers it, while he was awaiting at the border. You generally do not whant people mixing with your industrial equipment while the truck drives at 90-100 km/h. In other cases it happened to him that other people had stolen diesel gas from his tank while he was asleep during the mandatory break (this happened somewhere in Western Europe, I forget where).
And leaving aside all this, assuming that bad people won't suddenly stop stealing and generally doing bad stuff to unattended expensive material (like trucks and the things that the trucks carry), being a truck driver you're also doing lots, and lots of bureaucracy work. I once shared the cabin with him as a passenger during one of his routes, while we passed two European borders. The amount of paperwork he had to fill in was mind-blogging, I half-jokingly told him that his job looks more like a clerk-job than being an actual driver. Now, lots of clerk jobs have already been automated, I know that, but it mostly happened in the private sector, inside private companies doing business with other private companies. But once your clerk-like job involves having to do business with several State-like entities things become a lot more complicated, with legislation changing once every 6 months, being very diverse from State to State etc.
What I'm trying to say is that theoretically the self-driving problem looks achievable for trucks, but once you get into the messy details things become a lot more complicated.
Driverless trucks will be better protected, not worse. You can lock the vehicle much better if there's no driver who needs access to it. Cameras everywhere will mean that the control center sees people approaching the truck much earlier than drivers at the moment (who won't see it at all if you keep in the blind spot). It's the same as robbing an ATM. Theoretically also unattended but well enough secured that few people do it. The insurance premium for cash in an ATM is lower than in a bank branch where the teller can access it. A driver doesn't provide a lot of protection against serious theft, video surveillance could deter more people.
You generally do not want people mixing with your industrial equipment while the truck drives at 90-100 km/h.
He should let them ride with him in the cab up front, then.
It's the human thing to do - and in another universe (or if this universe were configured only slightly differently) they could be his own family, after all.
Then put them in the back while you drive a careful 50km/h the first few clicks before and after the border.
The point is, I'm actually amazed at the downvotes, and that people aren't naturally, viscerally having a more human response -- "For heaven's sake, can't I think of a way to help these people? They're fearing for their lives, after all!" -- rather than the response described in the post I was responding to: "Oh shit, it's risky/complicated! Avoid, avoid!"
Especially given this history, among other sordid events in the past:
I doubt they are fearing for their life in Turkey. They definitely will make more money in Europe but it's not like Turkey is putting them in gas chamber or something.
To suggest that these people are out to make a quick buck is just -- pure snark.
And to think that just because Turkey isn't currently running gas chambers that these people have nothing to worry about is, unfortunately, very naive:
Amnesty International has slammed Turkey for expelling dozens of Syrian refugees to their war-stricken country, saying the move is in violation of international law.
According to a new report released by the UK-based rights group, a total of about 80 Syrian asylum seekers, who were previously held incommunicado in a detention center in the Turkish city of Erzurum, were forced to leave for their country, with 50 more people facing deportation.
And going across boarders I could see people smugglers hiring hackers to slow down the vehicles so that there clients could board the trucks.
Drug smugglers are another group that could use this and how would a cop stop an autonomous vehicle to search it they would have to have a back door which could be abused
Stopping a safe, automated vehicle would be trivial. Just dress up as a road worker, and hold up a stop sign. Do it above a manhole cover, and you have easy access to the bottom of the vehicle. A remote human supervisor might not even notice what was going on.
Admittedly it seems just as trivial to mitigate with some more sensors e.g. weight sensors to detect the load being modified while stopped, cameras to detect aberrant movement inside the cab, etc.
And what would currently happen? Killing the road worker? No, every truck would stop and you could operate in the driver's blind spot. Autonomous vehicles won't have blind spots so that the operator can identify the theft much faster.
Smuggling is trivial currently, but not without risking incarceration or death. Once the contraband can be ferried by an autonomous vehicle without risk to the operator, the incentives will change dramatically.
Don't forget that the driverless vehicle will have tracking. Expect to get a ticket complete with video if you do things like that. If you are costing the trucking company money they might be willing to send people to court against you as well (taking you to court might not be worth it, but the teach people a lesson aspect might make it worth it anyway)
I live in (ok, ok, near) Boston and I constantly fantasize about this. I don't commute by car I look forward to riding my bike 5mph in front of driverless cars, at least if they don't run me over...
I also have to imagine they will be a ripe target for vandalism, especially if operators don't aggressively remove graffiti.
And they'll also be surrounded by camera's and hard drives. I would imagine that the sensors that can see through fog could also get more detail than the average CCV camera - meaning that even with a mask, you're going to get a lot of detail on vandals or road hazards (aka: You going 5mph in front of one)
Vandalism already happens to cars. As are cyclists who go 5mph in front of a car (on a road where it cannot overtake you) to take revenge on a driver they don't like.
None of that will change and that's not dependent on drivers.
