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Comment by pydry | Hacker News Reader

It's a bit more difficult with a person on board.

But not really. The person never makes a fuss (nor can realistically do so), and netiher does want to make a fuss for a simple job for one company, driving cargo owned by another company, with overall operation insured by a third company that's just going to reimburse everyone.

Don't a lot of truck drivers own their trucks?

Anyway, the human is a witness which adds problems.

He's also a potential murder victim, which drives up the potential legal consequences by a lot.

I don't have much real world experience with heist execution, so take my speculation for what it is.

> Anyway, the human is a witness which adds problems.

Because an automated truck will not have cameras all around it and also inside, and will phone home whenever some alert has been triggered?

What if it's 3 am 30 miles from the nearest city?

Still makes it a "is a witness which adds problems.". So there is no difference compared to normal truck+driver, in this specific sense.

But it is, they would need to use violence to compel them. That greatly increases the risk of them getting shot (Many truck drivers carry guns) and it goes from larceny to robbery which greatly increases the criminal penalty.

Key assumption: the perpetrator is willing to leave the driver alive.

They typically are. Murder tends to get a higher level of police attention.

My understanding is the most common thing to do is take the trailer when the truck is parked and the driver is away.

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