#truckers #trucking #RestForTruckers
Truck drivers are expected to rest after so many hours behind the wheel.
And in and around some big cities, where a big chunk of their deliveries and pickups take place, there are few places to park and take a break.
This causes drivers to waste time behind the wheel looking for a stopping place.
David Wickert, a reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, discussed this issue as it pertains to Atlanta in the Sept. 18, 2017, edition.
Driving a truck can be grueling. So, any wasted time behind the wheel exacerbates the problem.
“That’s trucks that are driving more than an hour for essentially no reason (looking for a place to rest),” Wickert quotes Daniel Studdard, the Atlanta Regional Commission’s freight planner.
So why not build more private truck stops? Local residents may balk, objecting to the noise and other nuisances linked to truck stops, Wickert writes.
Freight traffic in Atlanta is expected to rise 76 percent in coming decades, Wickert writes, so a solution to the problem is a necessity.
Or is it? Let’s examine the problem. As long as humans are driving trucks, rest periods will be required. But what if the trucks become driverless in the coming decades?
Anyone who drives for a living, be it a truck, bus, cab, ride-sharing vehicle etc., has to be concerned that their jobs could disappear over time.
The driverless vehicles have yet to be perfected – a fatal accident involving a driverless vehicle occurred recently — but there are lots of companies, Google among them, working on them.
First, it will be driverless cars. Then, who knows what vehicles will become driverless.
Remember, it’s the human drivers who have to rest, not the vehicles.
Who knows how long it will take for driverless trucks to be the most common delivery vehicles?
If you drive for a living now, and want to prepare for the day when your truck, or whatever you drive, will be driven by a computer, you should consider a Plan B – something that will give you an income when your windshield time goes away. There are many such income-producing vehicles out there. To check out one of the best, message me.
Meanwhile, there will be a temporary problem for human drivers around big cities. In Atlanta, Wickert quotes an ARC survey, eight counties around Atlanta have no private parking for truckers. Parking along the side of the highway is prohibited, not to mention unsafe. Some truckers have resorted to that, Wickert writes. Or, they park on private property without permission.
When Willy Seals, 70, parked his rig at a Home Depot parking lot, it was booted, Wickert writes. It cost Seals $250 to get the boot removed.
So Atlanta, and undoubtedly other metropolitan areas, is struggling with this problem. How temporary it will be will depend on the technology.
Meanwhile, not only will there be little rest for the weary, but also a lot of wasted road time and fuel, not to mention the increased possibility of accidents etc.
The drive to make driverless trucks, therefore, becomes a potential nightmare for all those fatigued drivers.
Peter