The CEO of a Houston-based trucking company says that autonomous semi trucks could attract new drivers and solve the “truck driver shortage” by making “truck-driving fun again,” but not without some serious industry changes.
Brian Fielkow, CEO of the Houston-based trucking company, Jetco Delivery, says that autonomous semi trucks may be just what the industry needs to give it a boost in a recent interview with Yahoo News.
According to a study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania, as many as 294,000 truckers could be replaced by self driving technology in the next 25 years, but those in the know, such as CEO Brian Fielkow, do not believe that this is the case.
“A lot of people think self-driving trucks are going to make the need for truck drivers less,” Fielkow said.
“Actually, that’s not the case. In my mind, the biggest asset that technology is going to bring is that it’s going to attract drivers back into the trucks,” he said, pointing out that in order for this theory to work, the trucking industry needs to work on its “overall image,” beginning with pay.
Trucking companies across the country have been bumping up wages in order to keep up with the high demand for drivers, including Jetco, who claims to have an average driver pay rate of around $60,000 per year – thousands of dollars more than the current national average of $44,500 a year.
Fielkow also points out that higher pay isn’t necessarily enough to attract a new generation of drivers.
“We’ve got to talk about respect… It’s time that we as a society regain our respect for the professional men and women that deliver everything that we own,” he added, pointing out that the industry should re-vamp its image first, then worry about the (possibly overestimated) damage that autonomous semi trucks could do to the truck-driving workforce.
“The driver-assist technology, automatic breaking, roll stability, speed and space management, the ergonomics, the comfort that’s coming into new trucks, [are] going to make truck-driving fun again,” Fielkow added.
“[But] I do not see, at least for the next 20 years, fully autonomous trucks driving next to my family and your family on the highways.”
