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If its the thread on a lorry forum elsewhere i'm thinking about Galileo, i'm one of the anti contributors on there.
These systems are the result of constant year on year dumbing down of skills and making the vehicles ever easier to drive, and the work itself easier except in certain sectors.
This has led inevitably to a growing minority of people, who at one time wouldn't have been suited to the job now taking up lorry work as an alternative career, as you hint at too many are indeed steering wheel attendants and as a result have reached the point we are now at.
The strive to automate lorries (platooning first then eventually driverless) has some bearing here, and in some ways these systems are IMHO being trialled on the roads, with all the dangers that should be obvious to anyone with wit.
Apparently the govt is going to allow driverless cars on our roads in trials, won't be cruising along Downing Street or along the main street in Chipping Norton i'd wager.
My lorry is due for replacement back end of next year, so i'll be getting one of these contraptions, only saving grace is this will be my last lorry as retirement is beckoning in about 5 years, if you'd have asked me even 5 years ago i'd have not wanted to retire but being forced to become a steering wheel attendant is fast diminishing that wish, the only saving grace is that my actualy work involves some skills and nous other than driving.
Its false alarms/positives and drivers of some of these vehicles (as always some makes appear to be oversensitive) having to go about their normal work...many of who have covered millions of miles without any mishaps and now apparently deemed too useless to be trusted to do it...waiting, bomb disposal style, for the vehicle to suddenly chuck the anchors out, it's happened to some when they've been turning corners and the vehile has 'seen' a road sign/bollard and then chucks the brakes on, thats handy on a slippery road surrounded by moving traffic..
When you think about it cars have gone the same way, they now almost drive themselves which has seen the huge rise of incompetents driving far too fast and aggressively in vehicles, which if the system didn't control the vehicle for them, would have chucked them in the ditch long ago.
Anyone in years gone by who took a greasy roundabout with a powerful car and just stuck the accelerator hard down, that car would bite them very quickly in the behind, similar in the days before ABS if you left braking to the last minute or failed to note the road surface.
Don't get me wrong, the safety systems are superb, and the next stage to automatic braking is probably needed due to deskilling, but i believe allowing every vehicle on our roads to interfere with the braking isn't going to be all plain sailing.
We all know whats next, it'll be auto interference in the steering, luckily i'll be away from HGV's by then, and the older cars i run, and will continue to do so won't have any of this rubbish fitted.
On a positive point, these systems will stop tailgating, drivers won't drive sensibly (which doesn't mean slowly), so the vehicle is going to do it for them, up to a point they only have themselves to blame for whats coming.
Edited by gordonbennet on 08/08/2016 at 08:22
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