Will autonomous trucks displace drivers? Congress mulls impacts
Summary
One question in particular reared its head on Wednesday, Sept. 13, in a hearing of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee of the U.S. House’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee: Will autonomous tech cost drivers their jobs? Testifying during the hearing were Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO of autonomous truck maker Aurora Innovation; Jeff Farrah, executive director of the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association (AVIA); Chris Spear, president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations; and Cathy Chase, president of the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. Spear urged establishment of a federal framework to avoid a “patchwork of rules” from individual states that create confusion among AV developers and end users. Farrah in his opening statement cited statistics gathered by his association: autonomous trucks have operated more than 45 million miles on public roads without a fatality, he claimed. He cited a data breach that exposed the private information of a number of military servicemembers, but added there’s a big difference in that and “the entire nation shutting down” if autonomous trucks across the country were hacked.