Driverless Trucks Could Save Lives. Here's the Data

Thomas Black, Bloomberg Opinion columnist, isn't the type to buy into hype without thinking. So he did what he does best: he tested the technology firsthand, got his hands dirty (figuratively speaking), and then sat down with the data to see what it actually meant. Spoiler: the results are interesting.

The autonomous truck conversation isn't new, but it's been dominated by two apocalyptic scenarios: job losses for drivers on one side, and viral videos of trucks crashing on the highway on the other. Black decided to look at the real elephant in the room: road safety.

The numbers are clear. Accidents caused by human error — fatigue, distraction, a quick glance at your phone while driving forty tons of steel — account for a huge chunk of fatal accidents. An automated system doesn't fall asleep after twelve hours of driving, doesn't check Instagram while exiting the highway, doesn't have a bad day that makes it careless. Theoretically, this should mean fewer deaths.

Sure, nothing's perfect. Autonomous trucks have their weak points — crazy weather, unexpected situations, the classic pigeon crossing at the wrong moment. But the data suggests that even if they won't solve the problem one hundred percent, the impact would still be significant. We're talking potentially thousands of lives saved every year, just in North America.

The real point Black makes isn't that autonomous trucks are the perfect solution (spoiler: nothing is). It's that as long as we're fixated on "what about the jobs" or "but what if it explodes," we're missing the fact that the current situation is already killing people. Maybe it's time for a different perspective.