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Comment by CoffeeDregs | Hacker News Reader

> Most 'displaced' truckers should be able to find work unloading automated long-hauls into smaller short-hauls and driving them during a lengthy transition period.

If a million truckers lose their long-haul trucking jobs, how do a million short-haul trucking jobs simultaneously come into existence? Many long-haul truck already go to distribution centers on the outskirts of metro areas so the long->short-haul transfer systems already exist.

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Cheaper, mostly-automated long haul trucking should lead to an overall increase in its usage, meaning there will be more long haul trucks to unload than currently, which will then require even more medium sized trucks (multiple per load) to transfer to. This is a simplified version of the prevailing current theory as I understand it, and it seems fairly solid to me.

There's no denying that full Level 5 across the board would lead to very large disruption, but it's a little too early to call how it will play out yet.

If it takes 10 years for every long-haul trucker to be replaced by autonomous trucks, then 10 years of attrition will reduce the number who will actually lose their job. In a perfect world, new people won't go into the field, and the current truck driving workforce will age or transition out.

Exactly - we'll lose the long haul easier to automate truck driving jobs first and that will decimate the employment of the field. That's the easy part.

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