Sell You On A Slow Kill - An Autonomous Truck system roundtable and intel update.

Ooops.

The Voice Of GO(r)D is happy to bring you a new roundtable discussion on the ongoing project of replacing America’s truckers with robots, a subject my podcast has investigated frequently since it’s inception. This episode touches on many areas, including the narrative spin on safety failures of numerous types and models of this technology, the naivety (or complicity) of politicians in various proposed legislation which would remove public oversight of their deployment on our roads, opportunities within the interregnum between now and when the flip gets switched on human truckers, and the seeming thin skin of at least one major motor carrier who are not pleased about drivers criticizing them in public.

My guests brought a great deal to bear for this information thick presentation.

Returning guilty parties include James Year, who has now been on this podcast at least half a dozen times, is behind the ongoing research project Stealing Fire which he started while at Syracuse University, and was the host of this super viral mini-documentary from More Perfect Union last year -

Paulette Nobles is a trucker and former employee of Hirschbach Transportation, and former because she refused to be treated as a guinea pig in training the autonomous systems built to replace her.

You would have heard Paulette on a previous episode of the show, along with our other returning guest, Mitchell Riesgraf.

Mitchell has been very busy investigating as much as he can about the companies, politicians, and ideologies behind the push for these systems to be imposed on our highways, and is a co-founder of a new group dedicated to standing up for the American trucker, The American Transportation Co-Op, who you can find on Facebook.

And new to the show is Mr Josiah Henry, aka Wild Beard, a YouTuber who has become a thorn in the side of the autonomous truck industry through his very incisive videos exposing the misinformation and misdirection of some of the actors involved, and also pointing out the losses and failures accruing to the folks at Hirschbach as they transition to this technology … poorly.

Many bits of research, reports, and various other links were mentioned during the show by all of us, so here is a list - you ought to check out all of this.


Hirschbach Transport Announces Purchase of 500 Aurora Driver Equipped Autonomous Trucks

https://www.truckinginfo.com/news/hirschbach-announces-plan-to-deploy-500-aurora-autonomous-trucks

Neuroscientist Finds Driving A Manual Lights Up A Brain Region Automatics Let Sleep

A fascinating study from Japan suggests working a manual gearbox gives the aging brain a daily workout automatics simply can’t.

US Law Enforcement Warns of ‘Anti-Tech Extremism’ as AI Hatred Grows

https://www.wired.com/story/us-law-enforcement-warns-of-anti-tech-extremism/

State of California Autonomous Vehicle Crash Dashboard

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/80957b812f8245538a883970ee31d103/page/AV-Crash-Dashboard

https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/18/waymo-recalls-nearly-4000-robotaxis-to-stop-them-driving-into-highway-construction-zones/



Vice President JD Vance mentions Autonomous Trucks in interview with Ross Douthat of the New York Times podcast ‘Interesting Times’

You can check out Vance’s ill informed comments about trucking and truckers starting about 54 minutes in.

One of Elon Musk’s toilet trucks killed some folks in Nevada recently.

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15948231/married-couple-killed-tesla-semi-truck.html


https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/08/feds-demand-autonomous-vehicle-companies-stop-interfering-with-first-responders/


Aurora gives a glimpse into their Lidar technology.

https://aurora.tech/newsroom/inside-auroras-photonic-engine-engineering-lidar-for-automotive-scale


James had an excellent essay and series of photos published at Everything is Political. (paywalled, cough it up!)

https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/autonomous-trucks-american-middle-class-photo-essay


AV Companies Admonished on Social, Economic Responsibility

With the recent NHTSA letter, AV companies are asked to go beyond basic technology (measured in crash rates) and demonstrate tangible social and economic responsibility.


Thanks for listening, and if you found this podcast informative, I would ask you to pass it along to any interested parties, especially our fellow truckers, and such online groups where they congregate.

Questions, comments, suggestions, corrections and Hate Mail are always welcome and strongly encouraged - gordilocks@protonmail.com

If you haven’t yet, please avail yourself of a copy of my book, which features an entire chapter dedicated to the question of autonomous trucks. It is the longest chapter in the book, and features commentary from a test driver at one of the companies engaged in our replacement.

You can pick up a hardcover, e-reader, or audiobook version (narrated by me) directly from my publishers -

https://creedandculture.com/books/end-of-the-road-inside-the-war-on-truckers/



Thanks again,

Gord