If you make the technical demands on a successful hijacking higher, I expect these numbers to fall.
I also expect self-driving trucks to sharply cut theft, rather than enable it.
If you make the technical demands on a successful hijacking higher, I expect these numbers to fall.
I also expect self-driving trucks to sharply cut theft, rather than enable it.
They feel like the easiest thing to rob on any low-traffic road - you need two people in masks, one walks in the middle of the road in front of the truck so it stops in order to avoid "traffic accident", the second one takes whatever he wants from the back, and both leave through a side path too narrow for the truck to follow. Even if you get a cop car there within 10 minutes, all you've got is a video without faces.
1. It would be harder and less safe to force him to stop the truck - drivers expecting a robbery sometimes don't stop in dangerous situations but attempt ramming the robber or running away at some risk; an automated car would be much more passive since the liabilities for running over a pedestrian are of a much higher priority.
2. For a manned truck to be robbed that way it would generally need to be an armed robbery, and at least in Europe most thieves don't have any easy access to guns;
3. If you get caught, you have a chance to get away from charges - it isn't a crime as such to walk in front of a truck, and the prosecution may fail to prove your connection to whoever actually takes the stuff;
4. This may be done also by young teens/preteens who are almost immune to criminal charges even if they get caught; currently they are limited mostly to shoplifting, but this would be within their abilities.
What proportion of loss do you think comes from robberies as opposed to theft when the barrier is reduced to finding an unguarded stationary vehicle? My guess is that robberies makes up a tiny proportion, and that they'd continue to be rare because of the perceived barrier of having to stop the vehicle.