I think we are a long way from losing our industry due to automated vehicles. To start with the infrastructure is not in place. I have read previous articles about having driverless vehicles on the road. According to my recollection, current technology would require sensors to be placed in the roadways. That would be extremely expensive. It would require sensors in every road in the country. I don't see that happening. As an alternative, you might be able to use gps tracking, but that is not 100% accurate. With trucking, you would still need a human driver to back in the truck or the technology to do it. That is not going to happen in the next 12 years. And what would happen if the technology fails? That could be a disaster. I don't know if we will ever see a time when all drivers can be replaced. But, it will take much longer than 12 years. The cost of implementing this type of technology is prohibitive, at this point in time. Our budget is already out of control, the last thing we need is something else to drive up our national debt. In order to implement this technology, there would need to be a national commitment comparable to the space program, during the early days. I don't see that happening. Americans love to drive. I don't see a time in the foreseeable future when drivers will be replaced by robot drivers. One factor which should be of concern is national security. We are constantly having our computers hacked in industry and government. Just imagine if the country had moved to driverless vehicles and a foreign power hacks into our national grid of robots and simple turns them off or worse, has them running into one another. It would be a disaster. We still need humans to control the robots.
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