{"id":82577,"date":"2025-05-24T07:45:22","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T11:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=82577"},"modified":"2025-05-24T07:45:22","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T11:45:22","slug":"humans-step-up-as-texas-steps-back-from-autonomous-trucking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=82577","title":{"rendered":"Humans step up as Texas steps back from autonomous trucking"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\"Aurora<\/figure>\n

Texas technology firm Aurora made headlines earlier this month<\/a> by launching the first fully autonomous freight service in the US \u2013\u00a0but those celebrations may have been premature. According to the company\u2019s CEO, human operators are back in the saddle.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In a blog post written by Aurora CEO, Chris Urmson, the company said the decision to put a human operator back behind the wheel of its tech-boosted Peterbilt Class 8 semi trucks was a result of pressure from the truck manufacturer\u2019s parent company PACCAR. PACCAR apparently wanted a human in place<\/a>, \u201cbecause of certain prototype parts in their base vehicle platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Urmson\u2019s own words:<\/p>\n

\n

A core part of our strategy has always been building a strong ecosystem of partners across the industry \u2014 from OEMs to logistics providers to regulators. These partnerships are essential to delivering a safe, scalable, commercial product.<\/p>\n

One of those partners, PACCAR, requested we have a person in the driver\u2019s seat, because of certain prototype parts in their base vehicle platform. We are confident this is not required to operate the truck safely based on the exhaustive testing (covering nearly 10,000 requirements and 2.7 million tests) and analysis that populates\u00a0our safety case. PACCAR is a long-time partner and, after much consideration, we respected their request and are moving the observer, who had been riding in the back of some of our trips, from the back seat to the front seat. This observer will not operate the vehicle \u2014 the Aurora Driver will continue to be fully responsible for all driving tasks, including pulling over to a safe location if required. And we\u2019ve shown we can do that safely, with the Aurora Driver operating for more than 6,000 driverless miles along our commercial launch lane between Dallas and Houston. This change has no impact on our near, mid and long-term development plans.<\/p>\n

CHRIS URMSON<\/a>, AURORA CEO<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The re-introduction of human operators comes just as Texas State lawmakers are reviewing House Bill 4402 \u2013\u00a0a proposed law just passed out of the Texas House Committee on Transportation and would require trained human operators in autonomous vehicles, effectively banning fully self driving semi trucks in Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\tAdvertisement – scroll for more content<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRequiring a human operator in a driverless truck isn\u2019t unreasonable \u2014 it\u2019s common sense,\u201d says\u00a0Brent Taylor, President of Teamsters Joint Council 80 in\u00a0Dallas, Texas,\u00a0and Southern Region International Vice President. Adding, that, \u201cthere are hundreds of thousands of Texans who turn a key for a living. They have mortgages, medical bills, and families to support. We can\u2019t let out-of-state billionaires steal their jobs with reckless automation. We must protect their livelihoods by passing this critical bill into law.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Teamsters have supported a number of bills nationwide that require human operators in autonomous commercial vehicles, including two such bills that have passed both houses in California, only to be vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Electrek\u2019s Take<\/h2>\n\n
\"\"
Aurora \u201cdriverless\u201d semi truck; via Aurora.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A national driver and equipment operator shortage continues to make headlines, but companies would rather avoid talking about operator pay plummeting<\/a> \u2013\u00a0opting, instead, to invest big money into self-driving and autonomous technology to bridge the gap.<\/p>\n

I remain convinced that we could solve that operator shortage by taking some of the billions being funneled into \u201cself driving<\/a>\u201d and spent it on operators\u2019 salaries. Heck, while operator salaries have increased about 24% since 1978, the CEOs at the truck and trucking companies have seen their pay soar dramatically, increasing over 1,000% in the same period<\/em><\/a>. (!) You can\u2019t say that last bit too loud, though: those guys are president now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Go get \u2019em, Texas.<\/p>\n

SOURCE | IMAGES<\/strong>: Aurora<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n
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<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas technology firm Aurora made headlines earlier this month by launching the first fully autonomous freight service in the US \u2013\u00a0but those celebrations may have been premature. According to the company\u2019s CEO, human operators are back in the saddle. In a blog post written by Aurora CEO, Chris Urmson, the company said the decision to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-cars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}