Washington - Danny Spell thinks that the idea that a
robot will be driving his 18-wheeler one of these days is hogwash.
"I been listening to a lot of crap on the truckers'
channel," Spell, 49, said, after pulling in to refuel his big rig at a
Pilot truck stop near the crossroads of Interstates 70 and 81 in Hagerstown,
Maryland. "I think that if the government approves it, they're going to
get a lot of people killed."
Spell, who lives in Clinton, North Carolina, was in a
hurry, but also a surprisingly good mood considering that he had just spent an
hour or more in traffic around Washington, DC. Chained to his trailer were huge
rolls of artificial turf that had stripped from a playing field in
Chantilly,Virginia, and were headed to recycling at a firm in Pennsylvania.
He's also not the only sceptic when it comes to the idea
of transforming the trucking industry with automation. He doubts that
self-driving technology will ever get to the point that truckers become
unnecessary.
"Anything that's run by a computer is going to get
messed up," Spell said. "They don't have no bulletproof
software."
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What worries him more these days is the coming of
electronic logbooks. The increased level of monitoring - which must be
implemented by the end of the year - is another headache on top of the usual
road hazards he faces out there, such as a "bunch of rude drivers."
"Like right now, they don't understand my truck is
probably weighing 77 000 pounds and how I could crush them because they're
acting like an idiot," Spell said.
Truckers are by turns dismissive and wary of the
technology revolution that might alter their role or even remove them from the
cab someday. A recent report by the US Energy Information Administration says
autonomous vehicles will transform the trucking industry before self-driving
vehicles move into the consumer market, largely because there are bigger
financial incentives to save on labour and other costs such as fuel.
Limited numbers
Autonomous trucks have already appeared on the road in
limited numbers, largely as demonstrations. But analysts foresee the technology
getting to the point that large caravans of self-driving trucks could be
running the highways someday. Truckers would work more like airline pilots, manoeuvring
big rigs onto the highway and then flipping on the autopilot for most of the
trip, taking over again only when they have to get off the main route.
But most analysts also agree that the transformation will
occur step by step, with driver-assisted trucks arriving long before driverless
trucks. Chris Spear, president and chief executive of the American Trucking
Associations, said fully autonomous truck fleets are still decades away, even
though the framework for assisted driving is already starting to emerge.
"We fully believe drivers have a long-term place in
our industry," Spear said. "You're still going to need them in the
cab to do the pickups, to do the deliveries, to navigate the cityscapes. As
long as you have other drivers driving cars, you're going to need drivers in
trucks."
That's welcome news for truckers, even if for most of
them the romance of the open road was always a bit of a put-on. The lonesome
cowboy, barrelling down the freeway to the rhythm of the wheels and country
music, staying a step ahead of staties and speed traps with the CB radio, and
finding some love at the next truck stop with friendly waiter and a piece of
pie and a cup of joe - that person exists, or used to.
But the truth is also more mundane and, occasionally,
dark: for all the camaraderie of truckers, most are solitary souls who find
themselves bored to death on the endless Interstate. Riding the rigs means
fighting sleep and strained eyes; riding out cramps and kidney-punishing roads;
occasionally getting jacked up on stimulants or running tighter-than-ever
schedules to beat the logbooks; and feeling not just lonesome but lonely. And
of course there are all those four-wheelers out there speeding, tailgating,
cutting in front, flipping the bird or not paying attention to anything except
their smartphones. Now robots.
In interviews, several truckers expressed concern that
theirs will be the next industry disrupted by job-killing technology, and jobs
that generally provide decent salaries for people who skipped college. More
than 1.7 million people make their living driving heavy trucks or
tractor-trailers. In 2016, the mean salary for a trucker was $41,340 a year,
which was better than bus and taxi drivers, according to the US Bureau of Labour
Statistics. For many, trucking offered a path up from of the working class.
Improvement
Jaswinder Singh Deol, 37, an Indian immigrant who lives
in Easton, Pennsylvania, said long-haul trucking was a big improvement over his
first career in the United States driving taxis in New York City.
"I like the job," he said after 10 years on the
road. Although he said he doubts that technology will make drivers superfluous,
he also owns his trucking company. So allowing a machine to do the driving
wouldn't necessarily take him out of the picture.
Robots are a worry for trucker Chris Rendell, too, but
not his biggest one.
"I don't really see it as a threat to people's jobs
because there's always going to have to be someone behind the wheel,"
Rendell said.
Rendell, 25, of Orchard Park, New York, was on the way to
Colorado with a load of fertilizer he picked up in Delaware, when he had to
pull off the road. The air conditioning had conked out so he rolled into the
South Mountain rest area to cool off. He had been on the road for about a
month, and he was already hankering to get back home to his wife - and former
co-pilot-Tiffany, and their 4-month-old son, Liam.
But after being on the road for five years, he also makes
about $70 000 a year. That was enough to let him buy a house - in cash. Driving
has been good to him, one of the few decent gigs he could find after quitting
high school.
"There's a lot of people out here in the same
situation as me," Rendell said.
Allen Barker is an over-the-road trucker who also lines
up his runs so that he's generally home on weekends. He knows the downside of
driving, like those trips when he was pushing himself so hard he barely slept.
"It will consume you," Barker said. He's also
been so keyed up after driving that he gets a dose of what he called "cab
dementia" - the sensation that even when he's stopped, the rig is still moving.
He's been known to touch the brakes extra hard at an intersection. And he's
seen the chivalry of the road give way to selfishness and high-speed anarchy.
"I've seen a lot of changes over the years,"
Barker, 50, of Parkersburg, West Virginia. said. "When I was a kid and my
dad was driving - I mean, there was courtesy. If a guy was broke down on the
side of the road, they'd pull over and say, 'Hey, you know, what's going on?'
Nowadays, they just give you the finger and go on."
Four-wheelers especially seem oblivious to the dangers
around them, he said. Just that morning he had a close call with a distracted
driver who was talking on a cell phone.
"You got these cars don't give a dang about
you," he said.
But he still loves what he does, and loves the freedom of
the highway.
"I got eight kids. It's good to be home. But it's
good to get away," Barker said. "Sometimes you need to get away, to
think about things. I love the road."