Walmart truckers to start at $95k a year
axios.com
axios.com
On the other hand, I think long haul trucking will be one of, if not the first job to be 100% replaced by self-driving vehicles. Trucking is limited almost entirely by the driver. Endurance (practically, but also legally) and stops for bathroom/food/gas, stops to sleep, etc. A self driving truck can go nonstop (gas/battery stops notwithstanding) for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Interstates and major highways will be the first roads that we see lots of automated driving on, as it's the easiest type of driving (no cross traffic, pedestrians, traffic lights, etC) and easy to map. I think there may always be a demand for highly skilled truck drivers (oversize and dangerous loads, navigating tight streets in the "last mile" of delivery, etc) but the folks pulling loads from oceanside ports to Walmart warehouses in the middle of the country are probably are among the first to get replaced.
It's also absolutey awful for your health. Full working days of sitting - you could say the same for office workers, but they have the ability to stand and stretch or go on small walks (eg to get water/coffee/bathroom break) as often as they need. Horrible food options on the road - mainly fast food and drinks full of sugar and caffeine. Little to no means to exercise. Hard to have a family or establish roots.
So yeah, in the short term you could make some good money, but I just don't see it as a long term career for a multitude of reasons.
In warm climates, yes, I’m sure it will. I’m more doubtful of this happening in snow country though.
"Self-driving cars can't expand to snowy areas" is a strange criticism of the business model.
As someone who spent a good portion of his career in robotics and specifically self-driving cars (including the big companies with billions of dollars, not the me-too startups), I disagree.
Most people aren't as cynical as me, but I left the field entirely. I doubt it will happen within the decade, at least in a way that's profitable. I'm skeptical it will happen within 25 years. It's not hard to demo the technology to convince people it's almost here (I should know, as I often helped stage the demos for investors). But self-driving cars have been 2 years away for almost a decade now. I really think it's similar to nuclear fusion. Some people might remember when Google put a blind man in a self-driving car as a promotion. That was over 10 years ago. I'm not saying there has been no progress, but there is still a giant chasm of unsolved problems before getting to the finish line.
https://www.theverge.com/2012/3/29/2910196/google-self-drivi...
That said, I'm happy to be wrong.
I suspect that driver shortages will get worse before they get better, b/c if we are "25 years out" from self driving long haul trucks, ppl will shy away from that job category so they don't get caught jobless before they are ready to retire.
Even FIRE bloggers don't actually FIRE. They continue to support their blog or get bored and return to the work force.
Our brains are wired to "keep up with the Jone's".
I agree with him. IMO long-haul driving is the most ideal case for self-driving vehicles - the 'spherical cow' of physics. I imagine that they'll self-drive into depots right off the interstates, at which point humans will take over for the last leg.
It's going to be a factory of edge cases for both the AI to handle directly and interpret of other vehicles.
You could have the trailers dropped off at depots by bots and taken into town by drivers, but at that point you're building infrastructure specifically for highway hauling and still using local trucks for the last mile, you may as well have built a rail network.
Train transport is unfortunately extraordinarily complicated in comparison. It’s a great option in some cases, but a totally non-viable option in many others.
I think it's useful to note that we haven't even fully automated trains yet, which should show that even when most variables are accounted for you still need a robust detection and decision engine at the helm.
What if the remote operator does not make a mistake, but the connection is not stable?
Do the remote operators need full HGV licences? Could they be outsourced to a third party? A third party in another country?
Then the human pilots in control of the aeroplanes try not to crash into each other.
> I'm not sure how an AI is going to deal with high wind or mountain passes.
Better than humans, probably.
There will be a few exhaustively mapped and highly trafficked main routes where the truckers will carefully pull out of a warehouse and drive to the onramp, get out, and take a shuttle back to the warehouse. The truck will drive itself continuously for the next 30 hours/2000 miles, and pull itself into a rest stop outside the target city, where another trucker will drive it the remainder of the trip.
Yes and no. On the one hand it's hard problem because of all the variables involved, on the other hand it's easy because it's 'just' a physics problem. There is no trying to second guess the intentions of other humans acting weirdly, no trying to decipher hastily erected diversion signs, no trying to interpret what that guy standing in the road waving a sign at you actually wants you to do etc.
It would still have to contend with humans even in the snow storm scenario.
More sensors? It shouldn't be too difficult to detect cross-wind or shear forces: I'm not in robotics, but I can think of several different ways to do this (sensing sideways forces applied by trailer to the coupling, or laser emitter/sensor pair or even a camera on the truck with high-contrast markers affixed onto the trailer
It's crazy to me people are so bullish on self driving cars. This is _exactly_ the sort of problem that humans are better at than computers - it's about exercising sound judgement in the face of novelty. I don't think humans are bad drivers, I think we have a toxic driving culture. I think if we found a way to professionalize driving, that didn't undermine the rights of employees by turning everyone into contractors, we could develop a healthy driving culture. Something closer to what exists in aviation.
It is my observation that driving is not something you do with your full attention. It is a means to an end. And that leads to "get there itis", aggressive driving, all sorts of shenanigans.
I'll bite. Suppose you have enough peak traffic that multiple lanes are necessary to transport it even at low speeds. What do you do instead?
So, I would say, invest in a bus system to make better use of the lanes you have. Invest in a subway system to give people safe, cheap alternatives to car ownership. Change zoning so that people don't have to travel so far to get where they want to go.
These are all incredibly expensive, a subway is certainly more expensive than adding a lane, but they have the advantage of actually addressing the problem. Transport really matters and we need to pony up for it, and we'll reap the benefits for generations.
Many (most?) truck drivers today that work as a part of a larger fleet have dash cams and in-cabin cameras that use AI/ML vision algorithms to evaluate how safely they drive.
Coca-Cola really doesn't want to get sued for tens of millions of dollars because one of their truck drivers hit a pedestrian while he was checking his cell phone.
Also, all of the AI/ML is terrible (like almost everywhere else).
Literally last week it was being discussed that Waymo now offers full self driving in SF right now. Unless I’m missing something, the future you’re saying is akin to fusion has just happened.
It rains in SF and there’s even fog… The fog’s name is Karl by the way. It’s also an old coastal city that doesn’t have a sane layout that you might expect from a test area like Arizona. SF is not an easy challenge and there are plenty of self-driving startups that have tried there and failed.
It hasn't rained regularly for years. We're in a bad drought, or as some other people put it, a new normal of very little rainfall.
I have no idea why people minimize level 4 self driving. It would absolutely be enough for most people in those geofenced areas/cities to no longer need a car, would massively drive down drunk-driving deaths, and would be a huge benefit for the blind, the elderly, the rural poor, children, etc.
You don't think it will happen in simpler environments before more complex ones?
I think the first examples, whenever that happens to be, will be on highways and more than that, only between special endpoints, IE yards with their own ramps. The vehicle never leaves the highway or the dedicated enpoints, no local ramps. possibly special areas of some rest stops for charging. They will be just a new form of port or train station.
The operator is just there to scan the conditions and make sure nothing is going off the rails.
Used to think that way (checks calendar) 7 years ago. I've seen what "top-notch" AI can do, it's failure rate, and lack of any form of corporate responsibility, to be doubtful.
I've seen them in a couple spiffy places, but it felt like the establishment was trying to flex on the patrons by paying a well-dressed man to push a button for me.
I've also seen elevator operators in old-timey historical buildings, but here it feels like the operator is employed just because the elevator has a museum-esque status. There are still people that know how to drive a horse and buggy as well - do you think this would be any consolation to the horse and buggy drivers of yesteryear?
Or, more likely, the operator is doing something closer to the job of security guard under the guise of elevator operator. Which, as it happens, is a really nice fit for long haul trucker discussion. It is almost certain that at least some trips will demand someone to ride along if for no other reason than to care for the load. That would be fairly considered the job of a long haul trucker.
But, if we want to say that 100% of elevator operator jobs have been eliminated and that people appearing as elevator operators today are really doing some other job (security guard, wealth flexer, museum curator), the idea of long haul trucker being the first to go at the hand of a self-driving vehicle as stated earlier doesn't jive.
From a trucking website, truckers get a bare working class income. But truckers also have intense pressure to work many, many hours, trucking working conditions are effectively nothing to write home about.
So no, not often a very lucrative career.
https://www.primeinc.com/trucking-blogs/much-truck-drivers-g...
I doubt it, trains and airplanes are as close to automated shipping as we're going to get for a while. Self-driving systems aren't anywhere near ready for personal transportation, and commercial shipping via automated trucks introduces even more complexity and liability.
I suspect that driving on tracks that aren't purpose-built for automated transportation requires levels of general human-like intelligence that we aren't even close to reaching with current approaches and tech.
You could charge the self-driving trucks a hefty tax as they pass through your flyover state, and raise the speed limit for them in return.
Empty highways are just underutilized bandwidth.
The other factor might be some form of gating of labour supply through registration, credentialling, unionisation, or a professional organisation (a/k/a guild). These rely however on constraining supply and only succeed in securing remuneration based on suplus value through monopoly gatekeeping. Not because labour is compensated due to productivity.
…but not if the tech is controlled centrally by large companies who take most of the profit from it.
You're describing multi-modal shipping.
As I understand it, rail has a ton more throughput at lower cost with longer and more varied latency. So trucks are necessary for perishable food and JIT shipments, the delay of which could idle a factory. There's also a concern for the closeness of the nearest rail receiving facilities.
There's also the short-haul use for trucks. It's not worth putting on a train to go 100 miles.
Some boats are simply too tall or too wide for trains to carry, but a truck can pull them straight to a dealer without worrying about being an oversize load.
Short-notice deliveries where you may not get be able to get a 'slot' on a train. Oddly shaped loads. Heavy loads.
The YouTube channel of Sergei Dratchev:
> I'm an independent trucker from Canada who specializes in moving heavy equipment between Canada & USA. Truck: 2019 Kenworth T880 (4 axles) Trailer: 2018 60 ton RGN (also have a tandem jeep and stinger).. Yard location: Cambridge, ON Canada. Company name: Sergei Dratchev Heavy Haul. Find me on Google or visit:
Could this be the reason no one wants to go into Trucking?
In the right weather/conditions, sure.
So, going full EV has huge cost savings. Getting rid of the driver, not so much. The problem, other than the cost of the bigger EV cab, is recharging is too damn slow.
EVs get away with charging overnight because humans also have to charge overnight when they sleep. But if there's no human driver, and just a big fancy truck instead, you (an investor) really don't want that massive capital investment idling for hours every day just to charge itself.
I can easily imagine people making a killing by charging up a bunch of batteries in a really sunny place, then having their robots swap out trucks' batteries as they pass through.
Sometimes. 1099 mislabeling is rampant in trucking, as is locking "owner operators" to a single company via owing outrageous sums for training (that get forgiven over 2-3 years) or from leasing the trucks directly from their sole customer.
At the very least, a company seeking shipping services almost certainly goes through a dispatching company, not directly to an owner-operator. So there's not really negotiating there. Sure, maybe you can refuse routes, but maybe you stop getting asked to perform them.
John Oliver just put out a piece on the abuse of 1099s in the trucking industry this past Sunday. You should check it out. I'm not saying you should take what he says as the gospel truth, but it's a more reliable source than nothing.
Of course it would, if it doesn't have to stop for 8+ hours per day.
> If it were really valuable, they would pair people up in trucks and have them alternate shifts driving
You're ignoring a whole bunch of human factors (including cost vs speed trade-offs), but you'e right; some truckers do get paired up.
A 70-ft 40-ton semi truck is an entirely different challenge. There's a magnitude more things to worry about from wind speed to weight transfer and it's nowhere near as simple as plugging in the current self-driving AIs on "highway" mode.
I think low-speed and light-weight campus taxis will be one of the first areas to go.
What, and get paid for sleeping? Snark aside; it will just tie up drivers to one per truck. instead, trucks can drive themselves between depots/warehouses, and humans will do the last mile (1 driver:many trucks) and the driver can go sleep in their own home at night and be off the clock.
1. https://www.forerunnerinsurance.com/what-does-average-semi-t...
Tracy Morgan was seriously injured in an accident with a Walmart truck and got 10 million dollar settlement from Walmart
Doctors, like DoD/contractors, Bankers, anything hi paying really; give their lives to their job. That includes limiting what they do at home, where they travel, who they speak too, how they act "out of the office".
Getting a career or sticking to a career are not indicative of happiness, security, or comfort.
The asterisks are you have to live in a truck, work crappy hours and be jerked around by dispatch, just like every other steering wheel holding dry van job. It's also not salaried so that "starting at 95k" is based on some number of miles. Walmart historically pays well in order to have their pick of top drivers. While they are a primarily dry van fleet, they're no Swift of Schneider so they expect high quality work to go with that pay. Driving over someone's planters will not sit well with them.
https://careers.walmart.com/us/jobs/1456060BR-truck-driver-8...
The $87,500 they post probably requires having the 30 months of recent driving experience, plenty of miles and safety bonuses.
Surprisingly low percent of truck drivers can pass this.
Plus, many trucks have a driver-facing camera, no privacy.
Why the "ever!" addendum? Are you suggesting it is unreasonable to not have DUIs "ever!"?
I am cognizant that not everybody makes brilliant decisions when they are young, and not all of them remain awful incorrigible human beings forever.
These are reasonable conditions, but apparently they are not easy to pass.
I think the texting while driving is the more interesting one: a bunch of states don't care too much (Arizona, Montana, etc.), some others only impose a small $25 fine, so young people may not think about it as a huge obstacle to a high-paying job much later.
I was stuck in traffic on the PA turnpike, and some pickups were shooting down the shoulder to pass everyone. A truck moved over to straddle the shoulder to stop it.
And what's worse, truckers often enforce their "rules" that aren't really laws. Like preventing zipper merges, which are proven to improve throughput when they are allowed to happen properly.
On the same note, the people in Mr. Beast's videos who had to keep their hand touching something for as long as possible (1 million dollars, or a sports car, etc.) literally have to sign waivers because of the bodily harm that kind of "hahaha" stuff can cause if an individual pushes it too far.
I think unhealthy or uncomfortable would have been a better choice of words.
https://www.google.com/search?q=is+truck+driving+physically+...
Perhaps you should listen to a trucker instead of an industry writer (as a bonus he's very entertaining and a pretty good video editor to boot). Trucking is a terrible job for a multitude of reasons and we should be very thankful to those who do it. Some of the jobs can be physically demanding, but overall it's known as a very sedentary job and the type of trucking that Walmart does is in that category.
It's an important, underappreciated, and dangerous job that I have a lot of respect for; I just don't think it's generally physically demanding is all.
I checked the source for that and it seems in all areas the $264k is from "Big Ass Freight and its just one number. Thats not a median salary. Actually presenting the median salaries for different distances traveled would be way more useful...
They also probably got it by taking something like peak monthly earning for an ice road driver and extrapolating without accounting for seasonality and expenses (or only partially accounting for them).
Oakland also suffers from a massive supply shortage and working there carries a high risk premium, so it’s not surprising that they have to offer higher salaries to experienced law enforcement officers. Basic law of economics still holds.
[1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/h...
Time to start job shopping.
I don't agree with the president on much, but I share this sentiment.
By this logic, con artists are necessary.
If investment bankers all went on strike for a month, civilization would carry on. If all truck drivers went on strike for a month, it'd be a catastrophe.
Jobs exist because there is demand, not necessarily a necessity.
Capitalism has fooled the common man into thinking that desire is necessity.
If he doesn’t want investment bankers, maybe he needs to help overhaul the laws to simplify capital raising, M&A, etc.
For example: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/06/aurora-aur-werner-enterprise...
I was in college at the time and couldn't wait to graduate and start rolling in money. I mean, these two programmers didn't even have degrees and I was about to have one. That meant I could do the same thing only charge $100 an hour right?
My first "IT" job out of college I made $54k a year. After three years I got my first promotion to $64k but quit a few months later. Did a couple of 1099 contracts at $50 an hour over a year. Got hired by Apex and sent to AT&T for $35 an hour. Did that for a year and then back to 1099 contracts again. This time at $55 an hour. Moving on up! After 4 years of that, quit cold turkey and figured with 10 years of experience now under my belt that I could easily find some better contracts or full time work.
22 months and 110 interviews later, still nothing.
I have dark theories about how much harder it would have been if I'd taken even a single other job and then tried to be hired in, because of how split-brained the "university hiring" and normal hiring seem to be..
You say it is thriving, I say it is not. So who is correct? Every job I applied for was django development with a remote team. Once I'd get rejected, I'd keep an eye on the company's linkedin page and see who got the position instead of me. In two cases it ended up being someone much more senior than I (like 10 years experience in pure django), and in 3 other cases it was someone with less than two years of experience and who recently graduated from a coding bootcamp (and I guarantee they are paid no where near $100k). And in about 10 other cases, the linkedin page has stayed the same, so not sure if they hired anyone at all or what. But I've only really been paying attention to the pages for about 15 different companies versus the 60 or so I interviewed for.
Edit: Oh and about the wage thing... forgot to mention for many of these smaller software shops they are now doing most of their hiring out of South America. Fullstack labs, consumer affairs, just to name a few but the list goes on.
The plan is to roll them out over the coming decade.
Source: conversations with the principal owner of the company.
Among the things that independent truckers have to put up with is that if they show up to pick up or drop off a load and it isn't ready, they just have to sit there and wait, and they're not compensated for their time. If we're looking at industry practices in need of reform, that would be one.
Probably cheaper to build a port from scratch in Baha and build a rail line to there than fight that fight.
"Amazon tractor-trailer crashed into five other vehicles on the Thruway"
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/thruway-crash-albany...
EDIT: Journalists should be upholding a certain amount of integrity when reporting facts.
Assigning agency to vehicles who can not make decisions is not what I have in my mind concerning journalistic integrity. You people like to downvote things when it conflicts with your view of the world so please continue to inflict downvotes upon me in exchange for the cognitive dissonance I've inflicted upon you. I'm used to it by now. The truck did not crash itself into five vehicles, an operator did.