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Comment by zdean | Hacker News Reader

"I still think driving a truck as a profession will be a thing of the past within 20 years or so."

I hope so. Trucking is one of the toughest professions for a person to endure that I've ever seen. It destroys a person's body and mind...and you're lucky to end up making minimum wage when you account for how many hours they spend working.

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And what job alternatives will you provide them, think specially about current long haul drivers, not future candidates you can discourage and divert to greener fields.

Economic assistance. Give them the resources to choose their new career path for themselves.

From whom, the govt? I don't trust that would happen (see rustbelt industries). These automation startups? What's their profit if they have to train the people they help get laid off/made redundant?

You asked a pretty important question (we agree that this isn't simple) and I replied with what I thought to be the best solution.

And yes, the government. The funny thing about a democracy is that if enough people want the govt. to provide something, it will.

> and you're lucky to end up making minimum wage when you account for how many hours they spend working.

If you're driving fleet, that's correct; however, there are a large number of "Owner/Operators" out there and they do make significantly more than you'd expect. If you have a good freight contract and a logistical mind, an O+O can easily make around $125k/year.

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