Attention, truck drivers! Get ready for a wave of advancements that will shape your professional journey. From driver-assist technologies to enhanced safety features, we explore the tools and resources heading your way. Stay ahead of the curve and ensure you don't miss out on the latest developments. Don't forget to subscribe and be part of our thriving trucking community!
You can reach out to Jim j.park@sympatico.ca
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Attention, truck drivers! Get ready for a wave of advancements that will shape your professional journey. From driver-assist technologies to enhanced safety features, we explore the tools and resources heading your way. Stay ahead of the curve and ensure you don't miss out on the latest developments. Don't forget to subscribe and be part of our thriving trucking community!
You can reach out to Jim j.park@sympatico.ca
Your Hosts:
John Farquhar
Summit Risk Solutions: summitrisksolutions.ca
1 226 802-2762
John@summitrisksolutions.ca
Chris Harris
Safety Dawg Inc: safetydawg.com
Chris@SafetyDawg.com
1 905 973 7056
Keeping it Safety Dawg Simple!
#trucksafety #truckinsurance #truckpodcast
Do you need a "Truck Driver Safety Policy?" Get it today! https://safetydawg.com/policy
Attention, Ontario Trucking Companies. If you are relying on facility insurance, you could be overpaying. Reduce your insurance cost by 10, 000 or more per truck. And good news, we accept drivers with only 1 year of experience. To learn more, just send us text by typing insurance to 365 364 0714.
This week on the Trucking Risk and Insurance podcast, we have Mr. Jim Park, an independent trucking journalist joining us. And this is the second interview of a two-part series. Uh, Jim's got so much knowledge and is, I believe, one of the premier journalists in the trucking industry. And we're talking about AI and dash cams and all kinds of stuff, how the future is affecting truck drivers. So stay with us. Jim Park independent trucking journalist is with us this week. Jim, welcome back. And I just wanna finish our conversation that we were having. The first episode we were talking about more about the environment, electric and hydrogen and natural gas, or r n g as you called it. But now I want to switch subjects and get into safety. You were just at a show recently down in California, and you said you lo you saw a lot of safety item items that are coming and you also know a lot of truck drivers and how they might accept it. Do you wanna talk about what you saw, what is coming or what's here and available?
Jim Park:Yeah, sure. Uh, that, that show was a c t Expo in Anaheim Advanced Clean Transportation Expo. So the show was focused mostly on stuff we talked about in the last episode. Uh, but all the trucks on the floor had all these advanced new safety systems on them. It was like, you know, you want an electric truck, it's gonna come with all this safety stuff too. Um, that's right. At tmc earlier this year, the beginning of March, I took a ride in the, uh, Nicola truck. It was down there. They had a little ride and drive set up for the media. Uh, but it wasn't just the Nikola, it was a Nikola truck with the plus ai. Oh. They had a name for it now, and it escapes me. It wasn't, you know, the Plus is an autonomous truck producer. Well, they've scaled down some of that artificial intelligence and built it into a. An advanced driver assistance system sort of module and put it on the, uh, on the Nicola. So it's got essentially predictive capability mm-hmm. Rather than just reactive. Mm-hmm. Which is pretty interesting, I think. Uh, I didn't actually drive the thing, they had a demonstrator driver in there, um, cuz it's still in a, you know, a alpha stage prototyping it. They didn't wanna turn me loose with it quietly.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:That was probably a good choice on their part. But Go ahead. Probably,
Jim Park:I might have tipped the thing over, or at least tried to, to see if it worked,
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:but pedal to the wall,
Jim Park:you know, we're, we're all familiar with, more or less familiar with now the, uh, Things like adaptive cruise control that'll, you know, maintain a, a preset following distance based on speed. We have, uh, automatic emergency braking technology now where it will detect, you know, rapid approach on a stop or slow moving vehicle, apply the brakes, uh, right down to zero mph, you know, to get the thing stopped. Uh, maybe not prevent the collision, but mitigate the damage anyway, not hit quite so hard. Uh, and then the stability control derivatives, you know, where if you go into an off-ramp too fast and the truck starts to lean, you know, outside a certain envelope, the system kicks in, fires off some strategically brake applications and prevents a rollover. So, I mean, who can argue with that except when you're the driver and this, these systems keep going off on you. Right. Mm-hmm. Well, what the experts will tell you is you're at the threshold driver. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh, that's why the system kicked in. If you, if you stayed below the threshold, that wouldn't happen.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Well, one of the complaints, Jim, I've heard from drivers, and it's specifically the adaptive cruise control, is when they've got that nice space in front of the truck, the safety space, the one that John and I keep preaching, drivers should have, God dammit, a, a vehicle cuts in short, and all of a sudden the tractor brakes are applied and it shocks the heck out of the driver because they weren't really prepared for it. Mm-hmm. Is there technology coming down the pipe that might help that? Because that's one of the things that I hear from drivers frequently.
Jim Park:Yeah. Screwdriver. Just jam it right through the box and be done with it. So gospel according to Jim. Yeah. No, you're right. Yeah, Chris. And that is a real problem. Um, and even, even the advocates admit it. And, uh, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute did a study on these systems a few years ago and found a, a lot of false positives. Um, and even real positives like you described, that really aren't that much of a threat at the end of the day. Uh, but the systems react to them anyway. Uh, I, I don't know if there is an answer to that. Uh mm-hmm. The people you talk to who, who produce these systems say they're working on making it more predictive as opposed to reactive, which is. What, what the AI thing is all about. I'll get into that in a second. But you know, the way these systems work is you've got a combination of a, you know, a camera or two up in the windshield, right? There we go. I'm trying to stay standard here. And you've got a radar device probably so a lidar somewhere down on the bumper. It measures distance and time and reacts to something that's getting in front of the vehicle and it decides at some point that, hey, you're too close to this, uh, time to back off. Um, I've had experiences, mind you, this is earlier bits of the technology, but it's still valid. I think, you know, rolling out a hill, picking up some speed, saving some fuel on the down side of a hill, come up the other side and you're still coasting. You haven't got your foot back in the, on the accelerator yet, and you come up on a car. That's ahead of you on the hill because you've gained speed coming down. Well, part way up the hill, the Jake's come on the, the engine, uh, brakes come on. So all that momentum that I had coming down the hill, all that beautiful fuel that I saved, now I gotta spool up my turbo and, you know, drop a couple of gears and creep up this hill. I'm going like, tell me this is good for me. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh, I think in a situation like that where the driver is on top of the situation driving the truck, there should be an override button I can hit. But there isn't just for like 10 seconds hit the button system shuts off. Driver's obviously aware of what's going on. I mean, you know that car in front of you on the hill is not gonna stop. Mm-hmm. Right. It poses no threat other than it's closer than the system is comfortable with. Mm-hmm. Out on the highway when some moron pulls in front of you, brake checks you, uh, I don't know, really short of, cuz you couldn't react fast enough to hit the override button in a situation like that most of the time. So that really wouldn't help all that much. Yeah. Um, the, the, it's true if the car pulls in front of the truck and is accelerating mm-hmm. The system will ignore it. Yes. Okay. Yes. But if it pulls in front of the truck and decelerates or stays put, then the system will respond back the truck off. Mm-hmm. Until that safety's, you know, that cushion's been, been reopened again. I found driving those trucks on long stretches of open road where you've got your cruise control set for x uh, you creep up behind somebody some distance away a mile, half a mile ahead. The system responds, sees the thing ahead, the Winnebago out there, you know, quarter mile out and it slows you down, backs you down, almost imperceptibly. So, you know, you're doing 75 through Nevada on the interstate, everything's good. And then suddenly you realize you're doing 55. Say, how did I get down to 55? Mm-hmm. Cause the old fart and the winnebago's doing 55 and you happen to be a hundred and, you know, half a kilometer behind them. Mm-hmm. Geez. You know, pull out, get in the left lane truck, hammer down, let's go. Yeah. Get past this Turkey. Yeah. But it, it happens so subtly you don't even realize it sometimes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Well, how's AI gonna change all that? You were saying you had some experience with, uh, ai, artificial intelligence. For those who are listening that don't know what AI stands for, how is that going to be more predictive and less reactive?
Jim Park:Well, this really is above my pay grade, but I'll, I'll try and relate to what they were telling me. Uh, you know, in the course of teaching, Uh, machine learning, the process that these autonomous trucks learn to drive on interstates with, um, every scenario that happens, every second of a trip is recorded somewhere in the, in the computer. So it's analyzing all the time what's happening, and it can get to the point where machine learning, artificial intelligence, which is where I I part company with this, I don't understand it, but it will, because it's seen this scenario happen 10 million times already recognizes that the next move that car is likely to make has a high probability of being X. So if the car pulls in front of the truck, making a lane change, the truck recognizes that it's approaching the. Uh, an exit ramp, for example. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. The truck will say, the artificial intelligence will go, oh, well this guy's probably just pulling in front of me now because he wants to get off here at this freeway. Mm-hmm. And as long as we keep a reasonable distance, I'll just ignore it for the time being, but I'm gonna keep my eye on it just in case he pulls a fast one. Sure. And I know I can react faster than the driver can. So there's a bit of latitude in there that today's reactive safety, safety systems don't have. And they look for cues like the cameras on these trucks, they'll detect if a driver's head turns in the car, like he's looking at his mirror. So that sets a trigger to the AI that, oh, this driver's likely to make a lane change because he's looking in his mirror. Okay, high alert. Now we gotta watch this car. Whereas before we could sort of ignore it. And if boom, the lane change does happen. It's looking for the next move, which is the next lane out of the path of the truck. Mm-hmm. So it's more likely to let you go, let that truck go, that car go without putting on the brakes. And uh, and, and I was gonna say,
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Jim, it would be really nice if people did look in the bloody mirror before they made the lane change.
Jim Park:Indeed.
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:That would be handy.
Jim Park:Even the variations in the path of the car. They were telling me, you know, when you, when you're driving, when you're driving, and if you look to the left, your hands always go to the left or right. So what does that do? But it changes the, the, the directional vector of the car. Mm-hmm. So the AI is watching it. All of a sudden the car is varied now two centimeters to the left. Sure. Oh sure. You guys making a lane change. Mm-hmm. And it's that sensitive. They can detect that kind of stuff. Yep. Yep. Which is mind boggling to me. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, but again, even probably with the, uh, with the, uh, stability systems If the truck is equipped with enough sensors, going back to, uh, our conversation earlier about my coffee mug, you know, if the, uh, I don't wanna plug anybody. So if the system knows where the weight is on the truck, how it's been performing, if it's swaying in a turn, if you're loaded top heavy, you know, high center gravity, the system might be a little bit more sensitive than if you had a flatbed with, you know, steel plate on it and very low center of gravity. Mm-hmm. It configure itself out and understand the dynamics of the vehicle. I mean, a driver should be able to do that. Right. But we've seen, I guess in the last 10 or 15 years, a pretty dramatic decline in the, uh, Cogni cognizant capabilities. Mm-hmm. Of some drivers. Mm-hmm. I'm trying to be polite here.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:I think some of the drivers have moved from being what we were in our younger days, to steering wheel holders. Yeah. And
Jim Park:well, we've made them that way though. Yes. We've encouraged that kinda behavior. Yep. Yep.
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:Well, these vehicles are too easy to drive, you know? Um, I, I was actually just having this conversation with some folks last week and they were kind of understanding why is it so easy to drive these trucks now? I said, well, it's like driving a car, you know? Uh, there's no big stick in there anymore. I, you know, the big gear shift of having to shift 18 gears made you think about what you were doing all the time. I had to be aware. What gear am I in? I'll just slow down. Okay, I'm in 15, I gotta get down to 13 because I gotta get this hill. That thought process is no longer there. And we've made these, these trucks much more comfortable to operate, they're much safer to operate that I think people are reverting back to, it's like driving my Toyota, you know, it's got all the same features as my Toyota. I think it's a Toyota, until all of a sudden it's not a Toyota and I can't react fast enough to what's going on. As simple as turning a corner, I take it too sharp and go, oh shoot, I forgot I had that 53 foot trailer on there. You know?
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Yeah. Or, or the 60 foot trailer. Yeah, the 60, no. Yeah. Brunswick.
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:So, yeah. Well, and, and I guess one of the things that I see too often, Jim, and, and, and correct me if I'm wrong, we have a lot of new gadgetry in the vehicle. We have a lot of new safety features in the vehicle. Are they not also creating a distraction?
Jim Park:I've wondered about that. Um, and I have to admit, I, I don't have enough time behind the wheel at weeks time. Uh, to sort of get used to these alerts that come through when I drive a truck. Now, it's typically for a few hours or maybe a day. Mm-hmm. So it's all pretty new to me. Mm-hmm. And I find some of the warnings, at first, they're annoying. Mm-hmm. And then I find sometimes by the end of the day, I don't even hear them anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I've tuned them out. So what's the, what's, what do you do then? Make it louder. Make it more obvious. Yeah. Um, well, I I,
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:I, I know in speaking with some clients on my side of the table, they've turned those alerts off because drivers are annoyed with them and they want them turned off. Yeah. So now it's defeating the purpose of that device, you know, over speeding, uh, distracted driving, things along that line. Um, and, and, and, and that's an unfortunate aspect. And I think one of the other problems we have is we have so much technology in these trucks that even the owners of these trucks don't know how well advanced they are. So there's no training for the drivers that are gonna operate these trucks of all the items they need to be aware of
Jim Park:that. That's my biggest pet peeve, uh, right now with these safety systems is, or even, you know, the advanced driving systems, uh, from what I hear, fleets still just hand the drivers the keys and say, call me when you get to Chicago. Don't knock anything over brand new truck. No idea. Yeah. And you know, these safety systems evolve model year to model year, right? Mm-hmm. So you get out of a, you know, 2014 Cascadia into a 2018 Cascadia, it's got a different system on it. Mm-hmm. It works differently. It's gonna react differently. Yeah. Get into a 2023 Cascadia is even more different. Yep. So does anybody ever take you aside and show you the video or they just expect you to go and watch the safety videos on your own time? Yeah.
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:Yeah. I, I remember years ago I had a, a client who had the radar system on, on the both sides and the front and the drivers were complaining of this noise beeping, you know, and they didn't, weren't contributing it to anything in particular. And it was interesting because the safety guy says, well, I don't know, I'll put you through to the mechanic. And the mechanic goes, oh yeah, it's some stupid devices on the truck. Just grab yourself some tinfoil and duct tape, cover it up, and the noise will go away. That was their cure, rather than explaining what it was all about. So, you know, again, driver set up with a new truck and no proper training. Chris, you were
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:gonna add to that? Yeah. Now I forget. So I'll throw it back to Jim.
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:Well,
Jim Park:you know, what do the fleets expect if a, if there's a problem? Mm-hmm. Safety problem. Throw technology at it, it's cheaper than training, right? Mm-hmm.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Mm-hmm. Well, and, and now that Jim brought that up, I do remember what I was gonna say. And it is a shame that they spend all this money. I mean, it's over 300,000 for a new tractor right now. And they give the keys to the driver and they give it to a senior driver, you know, as kind of a reward. Mm-hmm. And that's the end of it. They, as you said, Jim, they don't train the senior driver on the new items that are there, how they work, why they work, you know, into John's point with these alarms going off, how you can avoid setting the alarms off, right? Like, you're right. Where is the training? And I betcha the, the manufacturer has it, but if the company would at least give the driver as a minimum, here's the website. Go check these things out. You can figure it out. I'm sure. But they don't even do that.
Jim Park:I do know just from experience that, uh, Freightliner has a site you can go to that's, uh, actually based on your vehicle VIN number. Oh. Oh. And if you type the VIN number in, um mm-hmm. It will give you the active features that are on that truck. Hmm. Not a, not a sort of one size fits all global picture. Right. You can actually drill right down into the systems that are on board that truck with the, with that VIN number. Wow. Did you hear
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:that? Drivers? Yeah. And if Jim's really kind, he'll send me the website address and I'll include that in the show notes. Well, no, I think that's, that's
Jim Park:huge. Yeah. I'll try, I'll try and find that for you. Yeah, I mean,
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:if they've got it, I'll betcha most drivers don't know what's available. Mm-hmm. You know, and between Jim and I, hopefully we can find it and I'll put it in the show notes for you so that you can take a look at your truck and see what is available.
Jim Park:But of course, that's only applicable to the Cascadia models, I mean Right. I'm not gonna help you with the Kenworth. No,
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:no. But, but the bonus part is we know there's a lot of Cascadias out there.
Jim Park:Yeah. Well, Paccar may have something similar too. I, I don't know for sure. I haven't been there. I, I have been to the Daimler site, the, the Freightliner site. Sure. Um, but again, it's, I think left to the driver's curiosity to, to go there and look. Mm-hmm. Probably, you know, they'll be told, well, you know, during your 10 hour break, uh, log into this website and watch these training videos. We're not paying you, but yeah. Plug in and learn something. Alright, perfect. I don't need to, I'm making enough money driving down the road. I don't need to do that while I'm sitting still. That's right, that's right. That's kind of a core attitude, but I mean, yeah. Uh, the training is there. Mm-hmm. If, if the, if the fleets would just a, insist the drivers do it. B pay them for doing it. Yeah. And, uh, you know, maybe follow up with a quiz, you know, next week, you know, what does this sound mean? What does that sound do? And you know, what happens if you get up too close to the truck in front of you? What's, what, what is your truck going to do? I remember once being absolutely scared the crap outta me. Um, a car cut in front of me like John described earlier. Well, the truck made a, like a 30 or 40 pound brake application. Hmm. Yeah. I thought I'd hit the car. Mm-hmm. So for the next 10 seconds, I'm craning my neck out to see debris or something coming out from under my wheels. Mm-hmm. Cause it was a real jolt when the brakes came on. Yep. And I thought, okay, I just hit something, but what? Mm-hmm. I don't see any signs of it. I rattled my cage, I'll tell you. Yep. And then I spent the next, like I said, 10 seconds or so looking everywhere, but right out in front of me. Mm-hmm. Well,
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:and trying to, what, how safe is that? Yeah. And trying to calm your heart rate down. I mean, old farts like me would have a heart attack,
Jim Park:you know? Yeah. Like I said, it was, it was shocking and utterly unnecessary,
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:I was gonna say. So that just became a huge distraction for you. Completely took, absolutely. Took your mind off the road and you're now focusing for something else going, where's the debris? Did I hit somebody? Did I take somebody out? So, you know, yeah. When now all of a sudden we could be getting into a situation that could cause
Jim Park:us real harm. Well, it was somewhere North Carolina through Charlotte. So the traffic was busy. There was lots of very dynamic situation, you know, so lots to look at. Now, mind you, that was four or five years ago. It wasn't the newest technology. But still, uh, the other problem is the, uh, the overpass detectors. Mm-hmm. You know, when you've got these systems that aren't calibrated properly, or for some reason they'll pick up an overpass or a overhead roadside overhead sign Yep. And slam the brakes on outta the blue for no particular reason, seeing less that, but it's happening still. It's, it's a problem, especially with the older systems. The other problem with those things is, If you're in an accident and, and the body shop has to calibrate those gauges again properly. The sensors, the, the radar thing in the front. Yeah. So if the bumper's not bolted on Exactly. Sorry, my camera's reversed here. Mm-hmm. Uh, if the bumper is not bolted on exactly as it should be and the, and the sensor completely aligned, or if your frame is slightly off, kill whatever's wrong with it. Mm-hmm. If it's pointing a couple of degrees higher than it should, it's gonna pick up all the overhead signs. Mm. Yeah. And, and that's something that a lot of, uh, I've, I've written a couple articles about. Repairing this technology side, sensors and everything the same way. You have to be really, really careful when you're putting the thing back together that you, uh, you calibrate everything properly and align it properly. The old days when you used to have to align your headlights, you know, you'd park the truck close to a wall and get the pull screwdriver out. It's the same thing with these sensors. They've gotta be calibrated and adjusted properly.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:A lot of precision quite, I would imagine that's, that's a lot of, uh, training for the technician to know what the heck to do and how to do it. Right.
Jim Park:Well, if you go to Al's body shop, you know, and cousin owns the place, he can do the job 50 bucks cheaper. Mm-hmm. Chances are he doesn't know how to calibrate that stuff. Right. Yep. Yeah,
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:exactly. What else is coming down, Jim, in with regards to AI that drivers would like to know?
Jim Park:Well, I think ai, when you talk about autonomous trucks, drivers are naturally concerned about their own futures. Uh, are, is AI gonna take over the world? Most people are saying no. Uh, and I'm inclined to agree it'll be decades, not years, decades before they have trucks driving around city streets by themselves. Mm-hmm. Um, there's a, a pretty good business case to be made, uh, for running trucks between, you know, hub and spoke points like Phoenix to Dallas, for example. Uh, you know, pick two destinations, Chicago and Reno. I don't know. Uh mm-hmm. Drivers don't like doing long haul where they're away for weeks at a time anyway. Yeah. Mm-hmm. We know that it's, they're, they're impossible to find now. Mm-hmm. So, theoretically, A large chunk of the driver population should be happier, that now we don't have to worry about doing that kind of work anymore. Mm-hmm. That hasn't played out properly. Mm-hmm. Uh, but drivers I think, are rightly concerned that, uh, you know, AI is gonna take away the driving jobs, but it, it will not. And, and if it does, it won't be for, in our lifetimes For sure. Um,
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:recently, Steve Wazniak, uh, who is one of the founders of Apple Computer. Mm-hmm. Um, and this'll sound very bad, but he said, if you wanna risk your life, go drive a Tesla with Autopilot engaged. Yep. And that was a fairly recent, I, I don't know the year that he made that, but I believe that was a fairly recent comment that he made. I do think AI. Uh, for that type of thing is really far in the future. It's gonna assist drivers in the, in the very near future or the trucks. Today, my car today is a pleasure to drive, I think. Mm-hmm. Because it, it assists me, but yeah. I snickered when you said about the overheads, the odd time my car will engage the brakes when it sees a certain type of shadow and it scares the bejesus out of me.
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:Yeah.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Yeah. I mean, especially if
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:it's, especially if it's its own shadow.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:My, my point is it's far from perfect at the moment. Yeah. In 2023. Yeah. You
Jim Park:know. Well, the, the Tesla, for example, is a level two autonomous system, right. Assistant. Mm-hmm. Uh, level four is, is basically, uh, Full autonomy and level five is just press the button and walk away. The truck will figure it out. Mm-hmm. So that's not even on the table yet. Mm-hmm. Level four, what these autonomous trucks are, uh, achieving now, but with a human in the seat still to pilot the thing around. But those trucks are technically level four. Um, the safety record on them is remarkable. Uh, there have been a couple of fender benders and one flat out weird crash where the truck all of a sudden just turn left. But, um, that was a, a, I understand. Anyway, the driver flipped the switch on. And somehow the system reverted to the last state it was in, when it was turned off, which was making a left turn. Hmm. Literally cranked left the truck went into the guardrail and it got into a real mess. And there've been a couple of little fender benders involving other cars, but the cars have been at fault in those crashes. The truck just wasn't able to avoid it. But if you look at the number, when you measure crashes, you usually use some metric like number of crashes per million miles or per a hundred thousand miles. These things are, well, I mean way below the human metric of number of crashes that human drivers are involved in, but they're still worried about, you know, those edge cases that they can't control for. Uh, meteorite falls outta the sky or you know, sinkhole opens up, not cope with,
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:or that airplane down
Jim Park:and crash mitigation and reduction. They're already. Way, way, way ahead of what human drivers can do.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Mm-hmm. But with the human driver still be behind the seat. Mm-hmm.
Jim Park:It's, it's the subject matter. I'm sure somebody out there's monitoring this going
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:ai, we're gonna give him more difficulties with technology. Yeah. Elon Musk is watching. Oh God, what a character. Anyways, you were, you were saying, where was I going? What was I saying? AI isn't perfect jet, and I don't think we're gonna have driverless trucks. Certainly not in my lifetime. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jim Park:No we won't. Well, yes we will, but to a limited degree, like on the freeway. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that's probably a year or two out still. Um, the humans are in the trucks now. Not because they need to be for, for controlling the truck, uh, but they're still monitoring what's going on, right. Making sure the truck is doing what it's supposed to be doing. But again, the number of miles that they're collecting every day in these trials running between Phoenix and Texas, nothing's happening, nothing's going wrong, but there will be those edge cases hopefully, where the driver, uh, can intervene. But even if they didn't, I, I mean here we're getting into moral and legal values. Uh, if you say, well, the truck is already demonstrably much better than a human driver. Mm-hmm. So let it go. Mm-hmm. And if you looked at, if you were an actuary and were just looking at statistics, you'd probably go, well, yeah, I can't argue with this. Mm-hmm. But then as soon as something did go off the rails and you hit somebody, who do you sue? Yep. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Oem, the guy who wrote the program. The, uh, yeah, it just,
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:yeah. Here, here's, here's, here's, sorry, Chris, here's something I wanted to run by. Could you see the autonomous vehicles working in the fashion as we have in Ontario with the long combination vehicles? You know, we're running between two points, but we're not getting into the city with those long com combinations. We're basically getting off at an exit, and we have an area close by that we would pool those trailers at, could you see autonomous trucks getting into something like that? And then a local, local vehicle would in turn come and, you know, do the, uh, last mile deliveries or to the distribution center.
Jim Park:Well, that would be a good application for the technology. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You can run it basically from Detroit right through to, uh, well, I guess almost, uh, Halifax now. Mm-hmm. Once they get that stretch and Quebec opened up, uh Yep. Which isn't too far down the road. Literally it's four-lane highway all the way from, uh, from Detroit to Halifax. Right. Yeah. Uh, all you need to do is put in a fueling depot somewhere and you can get a truck that make that whole trip with net without ever stopping. Mm-hmm.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Mm-hmm. And as
Jim Park:you said, like with an lcv, I don't see that as a deal breaker.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Yeah. I, I would think with an L C V, the more technology the better. I mean, because if they wreck, and in most cases, if they do wreck, it's not the driver's fault, but it was the, you know, the four wheeler who caused the driver to make certain reactions. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. And if what you're saying about AI is all true and I have no reason to doubt it, then it would be a great application. Mm-hmm. Hmm.
Jim Park:Well, there's a, there's a technology now outfit in, they're based in Pittsburgh called Locomat. Right. And their shtick is to have, uh, I don't even know why they're bothering with this. Mm-hmm. Um, platooning anymore. But anyway, uh, a driver in the lead truck in, in one truck followed closely by a driver in a second truck. Mm-hmm. And the second truck basically follows the first one. Mm-hmm. So you've got a human steering, the first truck, and well, for trials purposes, a driver in the second truck, but it wouldn't need to be there if it just followed along behind the other one. Sure. So that's as close to lc, Ving as we've gotten so far with, um, autonomous technology as far as I know. Mm-hmm. Um, I read an
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:article, article, certain article over in Germany, I believe they did platooning, but with five vehicles. Mm-hmm. And it worked very well. But there was obviously a complaint that the car drivers all of a sudden 5 53 footers in a row mm-hmm. Makes passing a real challenge.
Jim Park:Impossible. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's not practical fuel. And you still got fives power units, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. But the
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:fuel savings were tremendous. Uh, that's what they were looking at. Uh, cuz as you know, platooning, the second vehicle saved some fuel, but what they found out was the first vehicle saved fuel as well. Not as much as the other ones. Mm-hmm. But the ones in between two, three, yeah. Two, three and four saved the most. The back one saved some, and then the front one saved the least. But they all saved. Mm-hmm. Which is kind of neat. Cool.
Jim Park:Well, my argument with platooning is why bother we're allowed lc vs. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You've only got one power unit, so your fuel savings are like, what is it, 30%? Mm-hmm. Over the, over the, you know, difference of running two tractors. You say just one tractor. Yeah. It's fuel consumption is higher. Mm-hmm. Yeah. One tractor pulling two trailers, it's got higher fuel consumption that one single tractor would have, but only like 30% higher. Mm-hmm. So your savings are, that's, it's a huge
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:efficiency there. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And really
Jim Park:it's crazy Americans, you know, they're all bent outta shape about, uh, triaxial trailers, you know, 96,000 pounds. Oh my God. Everything will come crashing down on us. Mm-hmm. Uh, one thing that drives me nuts about. Well, the US in general is, they are all over this, you know, decarbonizing thing. Mm-hmm. Not getting a little off track here. Mm-hmm. But, okay, here's a solution, lc vs. Mm-hmm. You know, cut your fuel consumption by 30, 40% over two trucks. Isn't that decarbonizing? Oh yeah. But it's too dangerous, you know? You can't do that. You can't. It's too long. It's too heavy. It's too this, it's too that. Give me a break. The real, all that. Well, I was
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:gonna say, it's already happening on the New York throughway, the mass.
Jim Park:But you know, the problem with New York is you're limited to 48 foot trailers. Yes.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Oh really? Okay. Okay. The icet
Jim Park:regulation from like 1998 or something. Okay. Capped the size of those trucks to 48 feet. We can even buy a 48 foot trailer these days. Yeah,
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:exactly. Exactly. Well then it'll all be old, it'll all be 10, 10 year old trailers and equipment For sure. Oh, for
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jim, as
Jim Park:we off track, everybody. Yeah,
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:no, this is all really good stuff. But what else, um, we gotta wrap this interview up in a few minutes. What else is coming down that a truck driver or a trucking company owner, uh, would wanna know about safety, uh, as it might be implanted into a vehicle?
Jim Park:Well, I, I think there's a growing trend now to use cameras and AI-based, uh, alerts and warnings, right? Uh, talking driver facing and forward facing cameras here at this point. Uh, but baking some AI into those algorithms where they can get a bit more predictive rather than just reactive. Mm-hmm. Uh, But then I've seen systems and only a couple of different brands where they have voices that come on and say, driver, you're following too close, or You're driving too fast. Or, uh, you know, they've got technology now that will look into your eyes and see the size of your pupils and whether your eyes are darting back and forth quickly enough. And then decide arbitrarily or maybe based on the evidence that you're fatigued and you should maybe get off the road. Um, some of this stuff is, to me, I'm old school and paranoid, but invasive beyond, uh, the need, if you know what I mean. Um, what can you do with a camera feed that's looking at my eyeballs all day, all night, all day, all night long, staring at my face, washing me, pick my teeth or pick my nose or scratch my nether regions. Mm-hmm. Uh, There's no safeguards for driver privacy at this point. Mm-hmm. I mean, this is still the wild west. Um, the, the, the, the camera suppliers will say, well, you know, if the red light's not on, it's not recording. Yeah. Bullshit. Pardon me. Uh, if the camera exists, it can be recording red light or not.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Right. And that, I mean, we were having this debate. I did a driver meeting on Saturday and I was surprised that the company I was working for, uh, didn't have any dash cams. Mm-hmm. I was very surprised at that. Nevermind, uh, forward facing or driver facing. And I, you know, what you're talking about is the next level in my car. I have a d driver facing dash cam and I activated it, but it's not telling me, and I'm still in control of it, I'd guess. Um, I hope Elon's not sending it all the all, but again, to your point, I don't know what, what they're doing. They say it's only going to my hard drive on my car, but how in the heck do I know that? Mm-hmm.
Jim Park:You don't? Mm-hmm. And what happens to it once it hits your hard drive?
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Well, I'm supposed to be in control of it because it's my hard drive.
Jim Park:No, it's actually theirs. You're just paying to use it?
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Well, no, this is a, um, I've got a one terabyte, um, uh, external hard drive that I plug into the USB port. Right. Gotcha. Okay. Sorry. Yeah, that one is mine, but still it's going through their interface, through their camera mm-hmm. To my device that could be intercepted and sent anywhere. Um, yep. You know, like I said to the drivers on Saturday at. But I didn't have the same knowledge that you've got. I said, but every workplace now has cameras in it. Mm-hmm. But to your point, the cameras in a workplace aren't looking at my eyeballs. Nope. Mm-hmm. Aren't staring at my face a hundred percent of the time. So you've made me just think more about the topic mm-hmm. As you said that.
Jim Park:the big problem is, and the American Transportation Research Institute just released a study on driver cameras, uh, reporting. Not surprisingly that drivers don't like them. Um, but it's, it's those safeguards. It's what's protecting that data, um, from eyes that don't need to see it. Mm-hmm. In the airlines, for example, in aviation, they have the cockpit voice recorder. Mm-hmm. And they have the flight data recorders. Well, the flight data recorders run 24 7 and that information is uploaded to some server somewhere all the time. The cockpit voice recorders only run for 30 minutes. I think some are up to two hours now. But if you complete a flight and there's no incident, the cockpit voice recorder records over itself, it erases Mm. Okay. Everything that's on that tape, not a tape anymore, but mm-hmm. So if the pilots get into a conversation about how, you know, what a Turkey their boss is, or they start talking about their wives or finances or, you know, whatever, you might wanna talk about two fellows sitting in a cockpit for two hours or four hours. Mm-hmm. Nobody will ever hear that conversation unless the plane crashes. Mm-hmm. So when a truck apply, the similar logic, if you driving from A to B and. Nothing ever happens. The recording's uploaded as you travel, or it can be in some models. Mm-hmm. It doesn't reside on the truck and it can't be deleted by the driver at the end of the trip if nothing happens. Mm-hmm. So where is your protection against that sort of, uh, uh, probing and prying? People have no business hearing what goes on in a private conversation, but mm-hmm. Unless it's protected or there's some safeguards built into the system to force, uh, these things to overwrite after a period of time if there's no incident mm-hmm. It's easy enough to do.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:And to, to your point, a plane falling out of the sky has a black box that survives that crash. I'm sure that's much more, um, the G-force and all that kind of stuff has to be much more than a truck crash, therefore. Mm-hmm. We already have the technology to contain it on a truck and have it. Later on, should we need it as opposed to uploading it to a server. Good. That's, see, you got me thinking, Jim. I love that.
Jim Park:Well, he paid me the big bucks.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Well, thank God you come on to this show for free, but without Jim, I think that's a great place to wrap it up. Gosh darn. I hope you enjoyed that interview with Mr. Park. What a great, uh, future we have coming down the pipe. And Jim made me think of an awful lot of stuff, so, Jim, the trucking independent journalist. Thanks for coming on the Trucking Risk and Insurance Podcast. We'll see you again soon.