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Comment by albntomat0 | Hacker News Reader

Does self-driving have to handle all weather conditions right away? A sensible implementation needs to take the current conditions into account, such as the weather and the status of the road and car. If those are bad, it would refuse to active itself, similarly to how a responsible human would choose to not drive in bad conditions.

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Driving in a whiteout blizzard is one thing. But people do need to get around in northern states in the winter and they absolutely sometimes have to drive in snow (and sometimes snow happens mid-trip or you have to get home from another location). I certainly don't go out of my way to dive in substantial snow (and fortunately I don't need to commute any longer) but it sometimes happens.

If it's just the autonomous system that doesn't work that's fine but now you really can't depend on the car unless there's a competent licensed driver who can take over.

I think we're in agreement. My comment was in reference to a more advanced version of what exists currently: a car that can be driven manually and always requires a licensed driver, but can activate its automation on command.

I think we'll have versions like that for a long while before we arrive at autonomous vehicles that do not require a licensed driver at all.

No, they do not need to operate in those conditions, but we have people seriously making proclamations about the imminent end of the truck driving employment industry as we know it, because "trucks will have no need for drivers."

Those people are fantastically wrong. And that's just one example.

Definitely not all truck driving, but an autonomous truck that's able to handle highway driving in good weather is a much easier problem that would put a significant number of truck drivers out of work

Yeah, all you need is one truck to lead a 'train' of autonomous trucks.. Think of the conductor/engineer being the truck in front, all other trucks ride so close to each other they cut down wind-sheer to save gas. At specific exits one truck will detach from the group, go to a staging area where a local driver finishes the last mile while the train keeps on going.

More likely the truck-driving model would change. Instead of having one employee who goes where the truck goes, you'd have employees who reside in or near shipping destinations and meet up with the trucks for loading/unloading/fueling/maintenance/etc. On the one hand a given number of employees could service many more trucks along a single route, decreasing labor requirements, but at the same time covering large numbers of routes may take more people, or companies may focus on a narrower set of routes, offering more opportunities for smaller shipping companies. Odds are the number of people doing truck-driving related work would stay roughly the same, but the total volume of shipping would go up.

I really don't see any reason why there is need for humans on highways. That is inter-hub transports. Even more optimally we would have rail infra for this, but sadly that is not cost or space effective.

I don't see humans going away for last 10 miles, that is delivery. Possible to make automatic, but there is an other layer of robots to be involved. And the environments like stores and private business in cities are much harder to design for this than hubs themselves.

Yeah, but an autonomous truck could pull over to the side of the road and wait for better weather

The goods inside often can't wait, even stuff that doesn't spoil has often a contracted delivery date

Non-autonomous trucks probably do some of the time. I'm from a snowy place and actual big snow storms with significantly reduced visibility are infrequent, probably on the order of one day out of 100. It might be OK to compromise and say that the autonomous part of the fleet doesn't go out when that happens.

I think you've misunderstood. In places that have winter it's not just when it's snowing that the road lines and curb are obscured. It's for long periods of time: days, weeks, months, depending on the road.

This isn't a weather condition. It is a season condition. It's around an appreciable part of the year and human drivers drive in it.

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