“The assumption is that we are living in some kind of driver utopia now and machines are going to destroy that,” he says. “The fact is that we have 41,000 highway deaths in America every year. If we piled those bodies up, that would be a public health crisis. But we are so used to the 41,000 deaths that we don’t even think about it.” Virtually all those deaths are from driver error, he says. “What if we took that number down to 200? Here’s how it looks to me. Thirty years from now my grandchildren are going to say to me: ‘You people had pedals on machines that you slowed down and sped up with? You had a wheel to turn it? And everybody had their own? And you were killing 41,000 people a year? You people were savages!’ “They are going to look at driver-operated vehicles the way people now look at a pregnant woman smoking,” he says. “It’ll be the absolute epitome of barbarism.” Honestly, this whole article is full of bits worth discussing, agreeing on, and disagreeing on. Like this one on eroding wages . . .[C]omputers don’t get tired, don’t drink or take drugs, and don’t get distracted or get road rage. Murphy, the author, says the argument that people are better than machines will not hold for long – especially as more and more people get used to autonomous cars.
But it’s a nostalgia out of sync with a reality of declining wages, thanks in part to declining union powers, restricted freedoms, and a job under mortal threat from technology, says Murphy. Truckers made an average of $38,618 a year in 1980. If wages had just kept pace with inflation, that would be over $114,722 today – but last year the average wage was $41,340.
I'd say every 5th Lyft driver I ride with is a former long-haul or short-haul trucker. I think that speaks volumes about the costs-benefits analysis on driving a truck. Worthy of note - I have twice had truckers try to kill me. "Rage" (road or otherwise) never entered into it. In neither case did I ever so much as enter their lanes. I simply passed them, then found them attempting to run me over or run me off the road. One literally crossed three lanes of traffic so he could put me on the shoulder, and then try to push me into the dirt. This works because they can say "gee, officer, I didn't see him, you know, motorcycles, so small! And so zippy-aroundy! I guess what they say is true - they're 'murdercycles!' yuk yuk yuk!" Not saying all truckers are murderous psychopaths. But I've encountered enough that I cheer their profession's extinction.
From this ol' Cracked article that I remembered: Recent statistics are still at 90%. Yeah, when an industry has a higher turnover than burger flipping and three-week diploma mills and with much higher problems when people fuck up, I am also squarely in the camp of automating that. Maybe promoting the drivers to 'computer monitoring agents', drive vehicles 24/7 in shifts and make everyone happier."That means that, statistically speaking, every driver you see is both new to the job and about to quit."
I have interviewed or interacted with three truck drivers (above and beyond the dozen or so refugees on Lyft). They were all economic washouts with no career prospects elsewhere. The most successful of them purchased his own truck, and that worked for a while. The problem was, when you're competing against big firms who claw back their margins by treating their drivers inhumanely, your choice is to treat yourself inhumanely or go out of business. Which is what he did.
Actually, they don't need to be angry for it to be considered Road Rage. It just has to be unsafe behavior directed towards another motorist. The fact that stresses of driving and road rage are directly linked, it wouldn't surprise me if professional drivers engage in the behavior more often.