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11/14/2008 - Tales from the Truck Driver I, Mining Truck Ever seen one of those giant mining trucks? Frequently featured on television shows about the ‘World’s Biggest This or That’, these behemoths are an engineering marvel. Weighing upwards of 700 tons and able to carry as much as 240 tons of raw materials, they are powered by 3,550-horsepower, 24-valve engines and can move at more than 40 miles per hour. Oh, and one more thing, now they move around without drivers. Wait…what? That’s right; these monsters of machinery have now become robotic! Engineers from Caterpillar and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) of Pittsburgh have developed a computer to control these vehicles around large, open-face mines. By using lasers and GPS receivers, the computer can continuously check that the vehicle is where it is supposed to be. It can even tell when there are objects in the road and avoid them. It’s not just in America either, Caterpillar’s main rival, Komatsu of Japan, has already begun using automated trucks in a Chilean mine and recently announced that it would be fully automating a British/Australian iron ore mine. Self driving trucks are here at last! So do truck drivers have to worry about losing their jobs? Not so much. The thing about mines is there isn’t much traffic, and the big objects to drive around tend to be rocks, that don’t tend to move. "Autonomous vehicle technology is pretty much in its infancy," said Tony Stentz, a professor at CMU. When insurmountable problems include moving around other cars and avoiding people, automated trucks for the highway are still decades away. Gold, Girls and Sanyo DVD players? Ever wonder where the shipping container on the back of your truck has been? Ever wonder what has happened to it? Well, if it came from Africa, India or even China there is a good chance it has seen pirates. That’s right, pirates. These are not your traditional, rope swinging, cutlass waving, swashbuckling (whatever that is), wench ravishing pirates from the movies. These modern day pirates, are most often, African and Arab tribesmen who patrol the seas in speed boats armed with AK-47s. Largely, they operate from the Horn of Africa, especially the war ravaged country of Somalia. There has not been a government in Somalia since 1993 and Pirates and Al Qaeda Terrorists have largely taken over. There is even a Pirate state—Puntland—that has declared autonomy. These pirates aren’t looking for gold doubloons and jewels; they are after those shipping containers that you drive through Kansas. It seems the pirates have a taste for consumer commodities and are taking over large transport ships and seizing the crew and cargo. Ransoming the crew and selling the cargo on the black market is extremely profitable. NATO, including the US Navy, has been forced to patrol the area with warships in order to secure long safe shipping lanes. Earlier this week a British vessel attacked and killed pirates who had taken hostages. Russian ships working with the French did the same yesterday. All of this is having an affect on trade, driving up the cost of shipping and insurance. This is, in turn, driving up the cost for the consumer. Piracy was actually one of the causes of the oil price spike this summer. Fortunately, with the Navy on the case, it won’t be long before the pirates are forced to find some other way of getting rich. And in the Trucker’s Corner, the Feds! Always think the Feds are out to get you? Well, recently the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) really stepped up to the plate for the trucking industry. The New York State DOT had announced that it was going to ban large trucks from the state route system, essentially restricting them to the interstate and highways unless they were going directly to a delivery point. It was estimated that the plan would cost $10 million more a year in fuel, tolls and operating costs to route around the state roads. In September, the FHWA told the state DOT that if they went ahead with the plan, they would cut Federal funding for New York’s roads. This week, the state DOT announced a new plan dropping the number of truck free roads from 60 to 7. While this plan is still not good for the trucking industry, it is a remarkable improvement on the previous scheme. Protests have been lodged with New York Governor David Patterson and, at this time, it is unclear if the FHWA will allow the new plan to go ahead.
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