Here Come the Driverless Trucks
The worst thing about I-10 is the drivers. If not for them, you could enjoy a scenic view of the Sun Belt, and there would be nothing to ruin your mood, from your starting point in Santa Monica, California all the way until you arrive home in Jacksonville. If you are the competitive type, you might start feeling disgruntled when you realize that Texas truly deserves its reputation for being huge; Florida might be a long, skinny peninsula with a long, skinny panhandle, but Texas takes up nearly a third of your cross-country road trip. The weather is unbeatable; if you make your road trip any time other than the summer, where terrifying thunderstorms are a daily occurrence and hurricanes are always threatening to include you in the cone, then you are likely to encounter sunny skies and clear nights all through your trip. The Sun Belt is the ideal location for driverless trucks; even though they can’t enjoy the scenic views, they appreciate the uncomplicated driving conditions as much as you do. Autonomous vehicle companies are currently trying out driverless trucks in traffic, and they could be coming soon to the Florida panhandle. A Jacksonville truck accident lawyer can help you if you have been injured in an accident involving a tractor-trailer.
Is Florida Ready for Self-Driving 18-Wheelers?
Commercial trucks are capable of driving themselves; they have had this ability for years. The trouble is in making the public feel comfortable sharing the road with them. All spring, self-driving tractor trailers manufactured by the Pennsylvania-based company Aurora have been practicing on test tracks in Texas. This summer, they will start transporting freight on routes that consist entirely of highways within the Lone Star State; they will transfer their freight to trucks driven by human drivers for the local delivery portion of the trip.
Each truck has at least 25 sensors connected to a computer that tells the truck when to adjust its speed or change lanes; the planned routes have a consistent speed limit of 65 miles per hour, so traffic conditions are the only reason that the trucks will need to speed up or slow down. Based on the recent tests, the self-driving trucks can detect a human-sized obstacle in the road in the dark from even farther away than a human trucker can see a pedestrian in the truck’s headlights. Even better, driverless trucks don’t get drowsy or angry.
Besides Aurora, other companies have started running driverless truck routes on highways, and only a few accidents have occurred; in most cases, a car struck the driverless truck from behind, and serious injuries did not result from the accident. The rights of people injured in driverless truck accidents are the same as those of people injured in any other commercial vehicle accident.
Contact Douglas & Douglas About Truck Accident Cases
A North Florida personal injury lawyer can help you if you were injured in an accident caused by autonomous vehicle technology in a commercial truck. Contact Douglas & Douglas in Jacksonville, Florida for a free consultation.
Source:
wistv.com/2024/04/29/tractor-trailers-with-no-one-aboard-future-is-near-self-driving-trucks-us-roads/#lvldya6e8s80wmwx7qh
