Most seem to believe autonomous trucks really are coming, if the timing is still highly uncertain.
But an perhaps more interesting question is what in the end will be the impact of self-driving trucks on the millions of Americans who drive trucks for a living. And perhaps surprisingly, there are all sorts of opinions on that topic.
The jobs facing the greatest risk are those where drivers move cargo over hundreds of miles but perform few specialized non-driving tasksSome industry observers, for example, have said use of autonomous trucks for line haul routes would have a minimal impact on driver employment overall, with many jobs involved in more local pick-up and delivery processes, at a time when there is a driver shortage estimated by the American Trucking Associations currently of at least 50,000 drivers and expected to get much worse in coming years.