Ninety percent of truck related accidents are a result of human error. Just because it’s labeled "human error" doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the driver's fault, though. 

Driving is a high stress, high demanding job with long hours and somewhat monotonous tasks that result in the driver sitting in their chair staring out their windshield for potentially eleven hours each day. It's no surprise that these conditions lead to mistakes and mishaps. But is there a solution to prevent these conditions? 

Packages still need delivering and as much as we don’t want to put more pressure of the drivers, we do want those packages in a timely manner. If you are paying attention to the trends going on in Silicon Valley, then you already know the solution: self driving cars.

Self-Driving Semis in the logistics industry

One of the best things about driverless cars is that they already exist. One of the more public companies, Tesla, has been promising and delivering some degree of self driving car since late 2014, and its prevalence has only increased since. Other companies like Google, Uber, and pretty much every other major car manufacturer are trying to get on board before the technology takes off and they are left behind. 

Maybe you’re saying to yourself, though, "A sedan is easy. It’s not a semi carrying tons of cargo behind it. Surely the technology would need to make leaps and bounds before being implemented into a large truck like that." Well, fortunately, you would be wrong.

The same technology in the self driving cars is being and has been put into full size eighteen wheeler trucks. Freightliner has already introduced the Inspiration Truck, which can drive on the highway on its own without the driver even being in the front seat. Semis like Uber’s Otto use a combination of four robust technologies in the trucks: radar, LIDAR (which is like radar but more precise for close range), stereo video cameras in the front, and an extremely detailed and up to date maps system. This is really all it takes for a truck to see the world around it. 

The tricky part is in the software that helps the vehicle determine what to do with the information it receives.

Currently, yes, this is all fairly new technology and cannot be legally used in most places, but Nevada has made a license available for semis to be self driving on the highway within the state. What good is that, though? The truck still isn’t able to get from surface streets to the highway on its own and still needs a driver? For now, yes. The short term goal for many trucking companies is to make trucking a local job.

Essentially, there would be truck depots around each city which would let drivers take the truck from a manufacturer or warehouse where it picks up cargo, then at the depot the driver gets out of the truck and sends it down the highway to the next city. There, the truck will pull into the truck depot and wait for a different driver to climb in so it can then deliver its cargo to stores or to your front door.

We are not yet at the point of being able to completely eliminate driver error when it comes to accidents, but it’s not far off. In the past few years technology for driverless cars have made leaps and bounds. In just a few years all your Amazon packages will be delivered by robots to your front door. Keep your eyes trained on your favorite transportation news website for future updates. It won’t be long.

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