Hi-tech threat to drivers' careers
Page 19
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• Skilled truck drivers could be thrown on the scrap heap by new technology, if science experts have got their predictions right. They claim satellites will steer trucks from depot to delivery site by 2019, with no need for human intervention.
But don't worry, the roads will be safer because cars and taxis will be taken out of their drivers' hands and also steered by satellites.
That's the view of Japanese academic Toshio Fukuda, of Nagoya University in Japan: experts also predict that electric cars and light vans will be common by 2034.
Other forecasts include security-conscious vehicles which will scan drivers' retinas to check their identity before letting them in. This technology is already up and running, but it's currently too expensive.
Further ahead lie cab doors that will read a driver's palm or thumbprint before opening up, and electronic gloves that will pass minute muscle movements to cab controls.
The experts are quoted in this month's issue of the US magazine Wired. But they don't make the one prediction that hauliers want: that rates will go up.