Could self driving trucks make the union a lot less powerful?

margaritaville

Well-Known Member
Self driving cars are going to mainstream in the near future. Which means self driving trucks could be in the future. If a truck drives your entire route for you. UPS might not think its okay to pay drivers as much. UPS driving is hard, but this would make it so any off the street person could start up at ups with not much actual skill.

Like the union could still exist but with a lot less negotiating power?
 

IlllIIllIIlllIllIIIlIlIlI

Well-Known Member
Self driving cars can't even drive in the rain at the moment. UPS would need to keep enough trained drivers on call in case it might flurry that day. How would a robot driver know if it ok to drive down a driveway? How would it know where its acceptable to double park? How could it hear a school bus driving around a blind corner, so it can pull over? It may be done someday, but not in our lifetimes.
 

Johney

Well-Known Member
Ah.......whose going to unload/load the packages? Driving is the easiest part of being a UPS driver. Dealing with all the other BS makes the job hard.
 
Ah......whose going to unload/load the packages? Driving is the easiest part of being a UPS driver. Dealing with all the other BS makes the job hard.
Watch how they make lays potato chips, sometime...its pretty cool...and scary how few workers they have.

they back the trailer up to a machine, it slowly picks it up and shakes it empty.
 

JL 0513

Well-Known Member
Even though the tech is there to some capacity now, self automated cars and trucks are still many years away to practical use. There's a million hurdles to clear and who knows if the infrastructure will ever handle it. Can cameras and sensors work in every conceivable situation? I doubt it.

Remember cars were supposed to be flying 14 years ago?

They'll have robots loading the PC's in a few years...lol

A few years? Clearly you're not serious. Even in 20 years, we will still be lifting packages the old fashioned way, with our backs. The difference with loading/unloading trucks vs what robots are used for is that it is an uncontrolled job situation. Robots are good at performing tasks in which the conditions never change. You throw infinite number of box sizes, shapes, and weights at a robot and ask it to build a tight load equals not so easy. It would need to be a highly advanced android with near artificial intelligence to do what we do.
 

Packmule

Well-Known Member
UPS management can't get EDD or the dispatch to work right. Program a truck to drive itself? With all our different time commits? Love to see that happen.
 

Brownslave688

You want a toe? I can get you a toe.
Honestly I think it's very short sighted that no one sees this as a threat. If short term you're talking 10 years then no I don't see it as a threat. In the next 50 years though yes I would be very surprised if this doesn't happen.

Never underestimate the speed of technology. Exponentially it is increasing every year. In another 10-20 years microchips will likely cost pennies and be everywhere.

This will be terrible for the economy though. Think about how many people make a living driving a vehicle.
 
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