Self-driving trucks will be job-killers.

[appalachiablue]

22. Appreciate your raising the truth of what's rarely mentioned, that apart from the robotic

owners who profit, there's irreversible technological unemployment coming for many in 10-20 years. In the US, 50% unemployment is forecast over the next 20 years by Oxford Martin in their 2013 Report and by other institutions like MIT's Technology Review. Advanced technology for many occupational skills is being worked on every day around the world.
As for truck drivers, there will be human drivers in the autonomous vehicles for about 10 more years, then the industry plans to implement a 'caravan system' with one driver-engineer in the front vehicle only. So expect many displaced truck drivers and all the associated businesses brought up in the OP article.

I just posted about this topic in reply to a DU OP or comment that the TPP will allocate money to universities for displaced workers to retrain for NURSING and TRUCK DRIVING. Obviously written a while ago by corporate heads whose last concern is US labor and job security.

Retraining out of work Americans to be truck drivers is particularly absurd since AI tech for driverless vehicles is established for several years now. Also, TRUCK DRIVERS salaries are the largest cost for trucking businesses. It's not just SAFETY that driverless trucks will accomplish, it's much reduced compensation for drivers, until almost no human drivers are used, and all the more profit for cos.

*The predicted vast changes to society also bring up the important issue of what products and freight exactly will these autonomous trucks be hauling when there are so many unemployed people without money to purchase goods and services.

*"Sign of the Apocalypse as Daimler Unleashes Self Driving Trucks in Nevada? Hardly!", May 7, 2015, By Bill Howard, Extreme Tech Blog:
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/205160-sign-of-the-apocalypse-as-daimler-unleashes-self-driving-trucks-in-nevada-hardly#disqus_thread


~ NEVADA LICENSED SELF-DRIVING FREIGHTLINER TRUCK BY DAIMLER'S US SUBSIDIARY ~




USA TODAY, "Why Big Rig Trucks, Not Cars, are Best for Self-Driving Tech", May 7, 2015, By Chris Woodyard
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/05/07/self-driving-trucks-daimler/70952162/

>Snip

At the end of the article, Martin Daum, CEO of the Daimler American Unit who was interviewed said, "it will probably be 10 or 15 years before DRIVERS can actually get out from behind the wheel of a big rig while it drives itself."