The self driving thing is already here, in fact a few years ago. I also seen a video of a quarry where the trucks carrying the sand, gravel or whatever were automated. Its coming if you want it or not.
If you believe everything you read, trials are already under way in this country, up on the M6 in Cumbria. For regular "mainstream " journeys such as a container from the docks or a railhead to a distribution hub, it will work, and if that gets rid of some of the wazzocks that Stobarts employ, so much the better , but I await with bated breath the day that an autonomous lorry executes a blindside reverse into a railway car park and weaves its way between parked cars:
Then stretches the trailer open and gets back out with a couple of metres of rear overhang:
While dealing with halfwits who can't/don't/won't see this lit up like a Christmas tree:
The autonomous truck is okay in the wide open spaces that are found in such places as America or Australia, but this tiny little island that we call home just doesn't have the infrastructure to deal with it. For example, this morning I drove from east Landern down to Buxted (in Surrey or Sussex, or some other equally dire county where the beer is flat, tasteless, and overpriced) passing through towns where the council have thoughtfully made a cycle lane by simply painting a solid white line 2 feet out from the curb. That leaves me, being 8'4" wide, about 8'6" to the central white line. What happens when the autonomous truck that's programmed to keep right of a solid line comes trundling along and meets an oncoming abnormally wide load who needs more width than his lane has??
Simple answer - the human driver has to resume control, assuming he hasn't nodded off on the bunk , but by this time it's too late. The road is jammed solid because the autonomous truck stood its ground, the wide load had to stop, and all the car "drivers" behind both trucks did what they always do, they kept creeping forward and jammed their bonnets up to the back bumper of the vehicle in front of them...
I'm all for anything that removes the abilities of car owners to act like complete idiots whenever they get behind the wheel, but I don't see it affecting my world anytime soon.