This car apparently decided it didn’t really need a driver. It took off when the driver and passenger tried to switch places.
Fortunately the car only wanted to go in circles. It was eventually turned off when a courageous firefighter was able to jump inside the moving car. No one was seriously hurt.
If you don’t see the video above, you can find it here.
The main report can be found at the Cape May County Herald.
As a professional truck divrer (University educated), I object to the notion that trucking is a fall-back job for the unskilled. Although it is not rocket science, it is a demanding job requiring many skills besides sitting behind the wheel. You need maturity, a responsible attitude, patience and, often, very quick thinking. Truckers usually work around 80 hours per week and good truckers can make 80-100 K per annum. Society doesn’t pay you that kind of money for nothing. Truckers bring you all of the goods that you need or want in your stores. Imagine how our society would function if we suddenly went back to the horse and buggy days? A computer may be able to do some of the work driving down the highway, but I wonder how it would cope with tight docks, inclement weather, irate divrers, bad road design or mechanical failures? Furthermore, society needs to address the issue of providing a livelihood for people that have been made obsolete. Simply telling them that they’re out of luck and they can just starve to death and go to hell isn’t going to cut it. We need a new social paradigm to deal the millions of people who are or will be replaced by technology. The people who become fabulously rich from new technology will HAVE to share with the ones who are displaced by it or we will have a huge social upheaval coming our way on par with the French Revolution. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Technology has made jobs obsolete throughout history – the printing press, the sewing machine, the cotton gin, the car, computers, desktop printers, on and on.
Anything a machine can do as well as a human or better, it will be put to use, and will generate more wealth at a lower cost.
The humans can then move on to the tasks that machines aren’t good at serving unmet or undermet needs in the free-market.
Everyone needs to be aware of all the competition they face in their markets, whether from humans or technology, and plan accordingly. It is not ‘societies’ job to plan your life for you, it is your own. Find something useful to do, that there is a demand for, at a price you can compete at and you’ll do well.
For now, and into the near future, human truck drivers will be fine. Overtime they will be phased out, and will have to apply their skills elsewhere.
It won’t happend overnight. Autonomous trucks will probably handle long haul first, only on major road. Human will perhaps be used to handle the tight roads, the docks, the heavy traffic. Overtime the driverless trucks will be able to handle the harder tasks.
Plan your future accordingly and don’t demand that others pay for your existence.