Released 09/30/2026
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Episode description
Kevin Barritt has been behind the wheel for 30 years. He knows what a truck is supposed to look like rolling down the interstate. So when he spotted something on I-10 in West Texas covered in cameras and sensors and looking nothing like everything else around it, he knew immediately what he was looking at. His first thought was that he was glad he was going in the opposite direction. In Episode 39 of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, Kevin sits down with Marcus for one of the most wide-ranging and genuinely fascinating conversations the show has produced, a deep dive into autonomous truck technology from the perspective of a professional driver who has watched it evolve for years, seen the early versions, watched the technology already inside his own truck make decisions he might not have made himself, and now watched the next chapter roll past him on the interstate. This is not a conversation about whether autonomous trucks are coming. They are already here. The real question is whether we are ready to share the road with them, what the technology can and cannot do, and what happens to the 3.5 million professional drivers in America when it does. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Subscribe now and let's start this conversation.
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There are certain things a truck driver expects to see when he looks across the interstate.
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Another big rig. Another professional behind the wheel. Maybe something a little unusual about the
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truck itself. But what happens when you look over and something is missing?
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For decades, we've been told this was coming. Trucks that could see the road, trucks that could
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make decisions. Trucks that could eventually drive themselves. It's always sounded like one
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of those things that belonged somewhere out in the future. Until Cypress driver Kevin Barritt saw
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one out in West Texas running along I-10, something caught his eye. Cameras,
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sensors, equipment hanging all over a truck that looked very different from everything else around
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it. Kevin knew what he was looking at and his first thought. I'm glad I'm going in the opposite
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direction, because when you've spent 30 years behind the wheel, you know something the rest of
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us don't. Driving a truck isn't just about staying between two white lines. It's about. Recognizing
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the car that's about to do something stupid. It's about knowing when something doesn't feel quite
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right. It's making a decision nobody could have predicted you'd have to make five seconds earlier.
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And Kevin had a question. Can you teach a machine all of that? Because this
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technology isn't science fiction anymore. Kevin has watched it evolve for years. He's seen the
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early versions. He's watched the technology already inside his own truck, make decisions,
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sometimes decisions he might not have made himself. And now he's watched the next chapter
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roll past him on the interstate. So today we're not trying to predict the future. We're asking
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a professional driver who's actually seen it coming down the highway. What happens when the
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future finally pulls up beside you? And maybe the bigger question. Are we ready to share the
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road with it? That's next on the Cypress Truck Lines podcast.
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Countdown to the Cypress Truck Lines podcast starts now.
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Your number one professional flatbed podcast here to deliver stories, safety updates and company
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news directly to your ears. Let's get down to business.
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How's the weather out there? Cypress and Sun belt. Welcome into another episode of the Cypress Truck
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Lines podcast, episode 39 As It Sits. Thank you all so much for being here today. Actually,
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I want to say a huge thank you to everyone that listens to this podcast, because and I gotta get
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my little party horn button ready here because this is an exciting one. Uh, over the last week, we
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set another record with how many downloads we got over the course, and we're so pumped about it.
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Thank you to everyone that is listening to this, downloading it, sharing it with your friends. Your
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homework remains the same. Just tell a friend about the Cypress Trunk Lines podcast that's
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working. We're seeing you guys listen to it more. We're getting downloads from all over the country.
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Uh, we really do appreciate you guys, uh, just listening to this. After all, it is for you. So tell
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a friend about the Cypress Truck Lines podcast today and help us grow this thing even bigger. Uh,
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episode 39 here is a is a little bit of an interesting one, because we've been trying to put
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it together for a couple of months now, and we just haven't really found a place for it. And we
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finally found one today. Uh, and you'll hear me give kind of the entire story behind this episode
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a little bit later, but tall in the short of it is a driver saw something out on the road that
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looked a little bit funny. Figured out what it was. Got in touch with me and said, hey, this might make
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a cool podcast episode. That's the gist of it. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.
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And, uh, every one of you guys is afforded that opportunity as well. If you don't already have my
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phone number, like Kevin, the driver that's joining us a little bit later today, uh, did, then you can
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always email me by heading over to the website podcast.cypresstruck.com. There is a link right
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there on the page that says get in touch or something to that effect. Click it, send me an
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email and let's talk about stuff. It doesn't matter what it is, I'm open to listen to and try
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to make episodes out of all of it. Now I will say I don't have the final say here. I do have to get
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it approved, but that's okay, because, uh, we've been shown, uh, that the, uh, the Penland family and all
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of the people working around them are pretty wide open to letting us, uh, letting us move within our
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lane here. Uh, and we really appreciate that latitude, because it means that we get to make you
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some really awesome content that might not be conventional as far as trucking podcasts are
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concerned. Uh, you know, we talk a lot about the nuts and bolts of the job here on this show. And
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sometimes we are going to take a little bit of a tangent and talk about something that might have
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even a little bit of a science fiction bit to it. Um, I don't know that it's fiction anymore. It's
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definitely science. Uh, but it seems like it's here, and we're talking about autonomous trucks. Today,
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after Kevin saw one rolling down I-10 out in West Texas. Um, and I'll be honest with you,
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I every single time that this comes up in any podcast that I do, I always kind of and I turn a
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little bit of a side eye to it. I'm not really sure. I don't really like the idea of taking
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drivers out of the trucks, because I got a lot of friends out there that are truck drivers now, and,
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uh, I've got a huge soft spot for them. It's one of the greatest groups of people I've ever met. Uh,
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guys that would, uh, bend over backwards for you at your, at your behest, give you the shirt off their
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back, help you tarp a load, help you strap one down, give you some inside baseball knowledge that
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maybe you didn't know that could change your trucking career. Uh, just because you had one
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interaction with the guy. I get to have those interactions every single day. And so the driver
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is the biggest thing for me here in this entire industry. And I think it is for everybody involved.
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I think that if you go to any random fleet down the street and say, what's the most important part
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of your business, they will tell you the drivers are the most important part of my business.
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Without them, we can't get things from point A to point B, the world shuts down. There's no more
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toilet paper at my Kroger and I start to get really upset really fast. So obviously the
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driver is a very important part. In fact, the most important part of this entire operation and
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here we are talking about removing that part because as I said, we're talking autonomous trucks
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today. That means no drivers. And that gets a little eerie to be honest with you. You start to
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really worry. You know, here at Cypress, we like to say all the time and you'll hear Kevin say it
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here in just a few minutes. We have an obligation to the motoring public. We want everybody home
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safely, not just the driver in the Cypress or Sun Belt truck, but every four Wheeler that happens to
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share the road with him that day as well, and all the pedestrians and and so on down the line. Can
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AI or a computer have that same compassion for the motoring public? I don't know, I'm not smart
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enough to tell you that, but we're going to have a conversation about it today. And Kevin and I are
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going to talk about a lot of these things. Um, this one is really what I would say is just a cup of
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coffee conversation. So if you don't have your cup of coffee filled up yet, or maybe your monster
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energy drink or your, uh, your Diet Pepsi, whatever it is that you like, I would say go ahead and top
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it off right now. Uh, and if you're driving, of course, don't do that. But if you're stopped, go
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ahead and top off the, uh, the coffee right now because you're going to want it for this one. This
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is a real fun conversation that, um, gives you a peek behind the curtain of how a driver that's
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been with Cypress for 17 years is kind of watching this unfold in front of him. And, uh,
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we're going to talk about a lot of different aspects of it. This conversation went a little bit
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long. So I'm going to go ahead and clear out of the way right now and get Kevin Barritt in here
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to talk to us about the time he saw an autonomous truck cruising down I-10. And, uh, he was kind of
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happy that he was in the other lane.
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All right. Welcome back in here to the Cypress Truck Lines podcast. We got our driver on the line.
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We're going to go to him in just a second. And, uh, I gave you a little bit of a tease here in the
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open about what we're going to be talking about today, and I am fascinated by this story. I've been
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fascinated by what's been going on in the world of technology, where it meets the transportation
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industry. And I think that a lot of you drivers out there have been wondering, when are we going
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to see this stuff? When are we going to see maybe a truck without a driver? When are we going to see
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trucks that maybe look a little bit different than what we're used to seeing? And we sort of
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have an answer for you here today. Let's welcome in Cypress driver Kevin Barritt to the show. Kevin
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thanks for joining us again man. Always good to have you here on the show. It's always a pleasure
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Marcus. Great. Thanks for having me. Of course. Now this is one that you and I have talked about for
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a while. You told me a while back, sent me a text message and said, hey, I saw something a little
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funny out here today on the road. Why don't you tell me about what you saw out there? Uh, and, and
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how did you kind of figure out what it was. Kevin, just go ahead and walk me through the story. Okay.
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I got off my injured reserve there in Jacksonville and CTC. One of my first loads was
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off to California and, uh, Cypress. And they're all knowing wisdom decided that the only band trailer
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that we were going to take out there was the one that was branded with our, uh, hiring logo on it. Uh
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huh. So I was sticking out myself just because I'm driving down, you know, a flatbed company with a
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van, trailer advertising for flatbed flatbed drivers. But it is what it is. And it wasn't in our
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hiring zone, which was even funnier. But. Hey, you never know who's going to pick up the phone and
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call. Right. That's where the. I talked to, uh, Sierra in recruiting, and she said that they knew when I
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was out there because they were getting calls off of that trailer. It actually worked. Oh, I'm sure,
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man. Uh, well, I've seen it. I listen, I know that, uh, maybe because you were on a little bit of an
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injured reserve, you felt like it was a bit of a scarlet letter. But that's a beautiful looking
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trailer. Yep, that's one of their rap crew. I think they have two of them, if I'm not mistaken. I know
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I was all excited about it, but I'm getting off topic here. But yeah, that's I mean, when you're
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when you're driving on the road as many hours as, you know, myself does. And most of us, most of us
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here at Cypress thing, you know, you're looking at other trucks as you're going down the road and
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you can see, you know, different companies than different trucks. And you did this stuff and see
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out here is amazing. And I was out. Well, I was where I was, well west of uh, San Antonio. I
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had San Antonio, Texas, and I got, I got quite the El Paso yet. So I was way out there in the middle
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of nowhere, Texas. And I was I was headed west and, uh, you know, I coming back,
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I said it east, and I just I looked over the westbound lanes and I looked over and I see this
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truck, and it's got all kinds of stuff on it, and I already knew what the stuff was. They had sensors
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all over the mirrors and the bumpers and everything, and it was one of those fancy, uh,
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self-driving trucks that they're running out there because they're wanting to run freight and
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try it out out there where traffic is in Italy, and it's pretty much straight road. Yeah, but yeah,
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it was one of those autonomous trucks. Man. And it was going the opposite direction. So I couldn't,
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you know, I didn't get a good look at it, but it did catch my eye just because of all the extra
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stuff that was on that truck was just, was just radical. So it had what you would call an
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overwhelming amount of extra stuff on the outside that was very visible to you as, as just a guy
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that's seen, you know, hundreds and thousands of these trucks. Yeah. I mean, I mean, we sit we sit and
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stare at these trucks all day long, you know, and even even our trucks at Cypress, you know, now that
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we got the mirror. Right. Mhm. And, you know, at least once, Once a week I get someone come up and say,
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hey man, I see those things on top of your truck. What is that? That's a Daily Mirror, right? Cameras,
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you know. So drivers notice that when there's extra stuff on the truck, it kind of sticks out.
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Sure, sure. So, I mean, that probably was a bit of a I, you know, I don't want to say
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shocking. I don't know if you were you were shocked. Obviously we know this has been coming. We
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know that they've been testing these things. It's just probably a little bit of a jolt to see it
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out there on the road. What was going through your mind when you first saw it? Were you thinking, get
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that thing off the road? Or were you thinking, man, I'd like to get up close to that thing and really
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take a look at it. First thing it went through my mind was I was like, yeah, glad I'm going the
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opposite direction. I don't I still don't know quite yet
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how I feel about, you know, something driving itself. You know, even in automobile, you know,
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something as small as an automobile. And then, you know, I've been I've been driving for 30 years, so,
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I mean, I couldn't imagine. Somebody's behind the wheel or something this big and heavy. Yeah, it
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blows my mind. Well, you sent me an article, Kevin, this morning that I kind of want to read a few
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excerpts from, um, this this article concerns Atlas trucks, and it has what they call
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Kodiak powered trucks. Um, and now, this is probably not the company that you actually saw, because
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this company, it says, is intending to start public road testing, um, in 2027. But
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this rig was definitely the one that you saw was definitely on a public road. It might not have
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been the busiest road, but it was definitely a public one. Correct. So it was a straight it was an
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interstate Highway one. Uh, it was I pulled. I-10, right. So not not only a public road, but a very
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popular and well frequented public road that runs, uh, east to west across the United States, if I'm
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not mistaken. And that one, uh, ten goes from California. Uh, where does where does it end? On the
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on the east side. Kevin, do you know. What's that? I can. Yeah. Uh,
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I can actually ends in California. Okay. There you go. So soon? Well, actually, Carrie goes, I think I
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can. Goes all the way to San Diego. Wow. When I went out there, I got up. I got off on eight. I didn't
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quite go all the way out to San Diego, so. Okay. I took I, I basically took I-10 from Jacksonville
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all the way out to, uh, I took the, uh, I-10 from Jacksonville all the way to California. Wow. It was
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just a straight shot. Wow. And so that's that's a really big interstate highway to see something
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like this on. And and now, not all of these places are publicly testing yet. As I said, this article
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that you sent me, um, this company, Atlas says as of March 31st this year, its autonomous
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fleet included 28 driverless trucks, 15 operating routes, Approximately 7000 loads
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delivered more than 450,000 tonnes of sand hauled, and more than 23,500
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driverless operating hours in quarter one of 2026. Kevin. That's a lot.
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53,000 hour. Excuse me, 23,000 hours is a lot of hours that they've been testing these, uh,
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these trucks out there. Now, of course, once again, we want to make sure that, you know, that this
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company that this article concerns is only operating on what they call corporate owned roads.
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So they built their own roads to test these. And I wonder, Kevin, because my first inclination
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here to hear, oh, you built your own roads to test them. Well, there's no way you can fill those roads
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up with all of the traffic that you guys are dealing with every single day on a road like I-10.
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So what's your thoughts as far? I mean, you read this article, you sent it to me. What are your
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thoughts on this this company Atlas kind of testing these things out of the general operating
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environment of a truck driver. Uh, on one hand, I mean, yeah, it's great that they're kind of
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doing doing in their own lanes. But I mean, you've got like I said, you've got to you've got to get
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it in to, to situations because you're going to get, you know, as a, as a professional driver,
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you know, that for as long as I've been doing it, you know, I, I can't predict what that car in front
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of me is going to do. I can be I can be prepared. And I've been trained to be prepared and watch it.
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You know, have have good things. But I mean our trucks now at Cypress we have, have the
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Ada system which you know, for car gets we get too close to a car or a car slows down, it starts
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beeping at us. And if we get too close it will stop. Mhm. But the system has failed. I mean
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I've had, I've had trucks with this company where I've gotten right on the bumper car and that
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ended system, not pick it up. Sure. So, you know, and I'm, I'm, you know, paying attention. I slow the
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I slow the truck down and I, you know, I prevent the accident. But if I was solely depending on
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what sensor to send that car and it failed, what are they going to do when they don't have a
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driver in there to, to, uh, you know, abort. Basically, right now
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I'm, I'm assuming that, uh, and this would have been hard for you to see, but I'm assuming there's a
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driver sitting in that truck just not operating it until he needs to be on some of these testing
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routes. But I also know that, uh, before, you know, to awful long, maybe we're looking at 5 or 10 years
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in the future here. I don't know, but I do think that there are some companies out there, at least,
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that are testing these things as fully autonomous, meaning that there won't be a fail safe driver
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sitting in the seat. Um, I would kind of like to see some, uh, maybe even some legislation where, uh,
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we need we need a lot of data here, Kevin, before we can put these things out on the road to
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operate just Juan, Tom, wherever they want to go. Um, what would you like to see? Would you like to see
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an autonomous truck? Always have a driver that can, uh, you know, abort out of the autonomy part of it
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and actually take over? And and if so, I kind of have some other questions for you on that, but how
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do you feel about it? Do you think that these trucks, when they eventually start running loads
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on all of our public highways, do you think that there should be a driver sitting there ready to
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take over should something go wrong. As a professional driver and job security? Heck yeah. I
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want to drive behind the wheel. You know, I got I got another good, you know, 15 years in me before
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I'm ready to retire. I don't want I don't want to lose my job. But if it comes down to it, you know,
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especially if Cypress goes, okay, we're going to go. You know, we're going to go, you know, 20 years that.
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Okay, we're going to driverless trucks. You mean, what are you gonna do, put me in Jacksonville
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behind the computer to watch the walk, to monitor, to help out. What am I going to do for a job? Yeah,
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you're going to be sitting there playing video games all day as what it's gonna feel like, right?
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Just American trucking simulator. Exactly. Well. Yeah, I would I would much rather see
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somebody there to, you know, as a Ferrell's face. But from articles that I've read and, and research
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that I've done, some of your bigger shipping companies like Fedex, UPS and I think Amazon
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are like like in town, very short, short run things that they're running fully autonomous with, like a
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backup, like an office. Like I was just saying, you know, they got somebody watching it on, on a
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computer, but I think I've seen reports that where they are actually they are actually running some
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without drivers in the trucks, but it's very low traffic area. Yeah, stuff like that. Right, right.
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But let me ask you this just from a guy. I mean, you've got a lot of miles under your belt. A lot
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of experience out there. Uh, Kevin, would you trust one of those? Let's say let's talk about the short
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haul ones. Let's say, you know, you got a UPS truck that. Yeah, it's brown, but it looks a little bit
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different than the one you've seen before. And all of a sudden you realize, hey, there's not a driver
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behind the wheel of that thing. And, uh, you're kind of out there in traffic with it. How do you how
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much do you trust that thing? It's like I said, it's it's electronics that can fail.
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Yeah. I mean, like like you were saying. I mean, they've really got to do their research. They
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really got to have this thing, you know, almost foolproof. Foolproof. I mean, even even a driver
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that's been driving for 30 years can have an accident. Yep. Yeah. So, I mean, it's going to happen.
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It's just, you know, at what point? I mean, of course, the, you know, the company is going to get lawsuits
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like there's a major accident and there's going to be it's going to be hard to explain to the to
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the families that, oh, yeah, you know, we put a truck out there and didn't have a driver in there. And
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real sorry it ran over your it ran over your grandma, you know, he'll go into the grocery store.
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Yeah. Yeah, it can definitely happen. I mean, look, that's a that's a risk with just grandma getting
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in her Honda, right? I mean, it's it is part of what we all assume as, as general risk and jump in our
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rig every single day without really thinking about all of the hazards that present themselves
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out there. And, um, just, you know, I, I work on a computer every single day of the week,
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um, every day of my life. I sit up here behind this computer. It's an impressive machine. It's got a
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lot of processing power. I'm able to, uh, record stuff like this live and have it uploaded in
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seconds afterwards so that my editor can get his hands on it. It really does impress me. Would I
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trust it if you put it in the driver's seat of my Chevy Silverado? Probably not, because guess what?
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Uh, Kevin, you've probably even been here with me when all of a sudden everything goes quiet. Is it
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a power outage? Did my computer crash? We don't know, but something happened, and it was, uh. It
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affected the entire process. And I think that's one of the things that concerns me a little bit
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is. Yeah. Is is this AI stuff that's that we're seeing, you know, grow kind of exponentially right
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now. Um, can it actually replicate the human, um, experience and
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the, I guess, the all of that knowledge that you gain by doing all of the trips that
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you've done and seeing everything that you've done. Kevin, I like to think of a truck driver as a
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guy that if you're watching traffic and you're you're focused, you know, maybe a car or two ahead
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of you like you normally are, You have instincts that are ready to predict. If you see some
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behavior, like maybe when the guy passed you, you saw that he was on his phone. Maybe you saw him
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weaving in and out of traffic from way back, and you've been keeping your eye on him all the way
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up. Can an autonomous truck do that? Can an autonomous truck build the same type of knowledge
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and response time and reaction time that a driver like you have? I'll tell you my opinion, Kevin. I
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think that that's that's way down the road. Maybe eventually I'm not smart enough to tell you
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whether or not the computers can actually make it happen. But I think based on my experience with
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technology in right here in 2026, that maybe we're still a little bit behind that, because just the
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other day I recorded a piece of audio and I clicked save and all my screens went black. And I
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had I had to do that all over again. I lost everything, Kevin and I, I see something like that.
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And I think, well, that's a pretty simple thing. Like, why did that happen? And what happens if that
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happens when you're doing 65 miles an hour down the highway and, you know, high congestion there
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talking about these trucks, uh, this article that you sent me fully loaded, we're talking 135 tons
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of sand here. That's a really, really heavy rig. Yeah. And it says it's pulling triple trailers. I
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mean, you don't even hardly see that on the road now. Right now they're going to want to. Not only
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are they going to take the driver out of the truck, they're going to add 1 to 2 extra trailers
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to the truck. So I was like, well, you're you're almost doubling the weight that that
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I haul. Right? Which is eerily similar to the way that that Tesla came on the market. You know,
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because, uh, that was one concern about the Teslas and the kind of the auto driving function in that
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is that. Hey, man, uh, these things are like three times heavier than a normal sedan.
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What's going to happen when this thing goes careening off at 70 miles an hour in the auto? The
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auto brake doesn't work, and it hits something. And look, it's happened, Kevin. We've seen stories about
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it happen. And those wrecks. When a Tesla gets into them at high speed, they're ugly. I was on Facebook
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and I saw, you know, a lot of these, uh, major cities. I don't know if Oregon's this up
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to date yet or not, but, uh, I know Orlando and Tampa and I don't know about Jacksonville, but
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Orlando, Tampa and Miami now have self-driving taxis. Yeah. The, uh. The. The Waymo.
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Get in the car and there's yeah, you get in the car and there's no drivers. It's just a car
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driving. Yep. And this got this video of this, you know, this self-driving taxi was going down the
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road and a car was coming out of a shopping center. And it didn't pull out in front of the
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taxi, but he his bumper was out in the road and the taxi didn't, didn't catch the guy's bumper
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sticking out, and he sideswiped the guy's bumper. Yeah, I'm sure ripped that bumper clean off, too. No,
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it just kind of bounced off of it. But, you know, the video played on a little bit and the car
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didn't. The self-driving car didn't stop. Oh, wow. The article the article said that it eventually
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had stopped like a block or two down the road after it realized something was wrong. But, you
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know, the guy creeped out of the parking lot. The taxi come by and then clipped it and kept going.
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And then it stopped. But, you know, I mean, what would have happened would have been something a
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little bit major in that taxi. Just kept on going, right. What if it was a motorcycle or something
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like that that poked its front wheel out, or a or a pedestrian or something like that, that it
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bumped? I mean, you're talking about what would equate a felony for you and I, Kevin, that's
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leaving the scene of an accident. That's a really big deal. Exactly. I said the taxi had no
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immediately hit it because eventually the car it didn't automatically. Right as soon as they
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had made contact with something, which is kind of kind of gets me thinking, too. You know what you
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know. That's that's not good there. You know, one of the things that gives me pause about this
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technology to begin with is, you know, the I think the very first city that they rolled those
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self-driving taxis out in with San Francisco, if I'm not mistaken. Um, somewhere out of California.
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Of course. Right. I mean, we could have we could have bet that that was going to happen. Um, but I
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saw a video where people were living in, like, a high rise apartment building, and the Waymo
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parking lot was right next to their apartment building, and it was like three in the morning, and
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they're videotaping. All of these cabs are trying to come back and park themselves for the night.
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And they got into like a traffic jam in the parking lot. And the way, the way that they
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communicate with each other, Kevin, is to blow their horn. So it was just like 40 or 50 of these
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self-driving taxicabs in a traffic jam in a parking lot, just honking at each other at like
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three in the morning. And I'm sitting here thinking like, okay, if we can't get them parked
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where they're supposed to be parked when they're supposed to be parked there, we got a problem,
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right? Because how are you gonna how are you going to trust it? To pull up to a dock and get
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successfully and safely unloaded if we can't even trust them to pull into a parking lot and get
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parked at this point in time. Seems like maybe we're not quite there yet. Kevin. Yeah, yep. And as
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far as as you know, the timeline for the for this to happen was back when, uh,
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you know, my family knows I'm a drive truck for a living and I think probably, I don't know, early
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2000, they said, you know, you know what? What if they ever come up with a self-driving truck, you
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know, back in the, oh, in 2000, you're like, that's that's not going to happen in my lifetime. You
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know I'm never going to see that, right? That was science fiction back then. In
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2005, I was worried. You know, I was working for a local company, for a rigging company, and we we
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were working. We were setting this plant up. Do you ever get those, uh, big packets in the mail that
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are stuffed full of coupons for, like, local businesses? They called mail pack. Oh, more than I
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care to admit. Well, they were setting one up in Saint Petersburg, Florida, and my
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company got the contract to set the machines up. Well, while we were setting the machine up, this
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was going to be a fully autonomous plant that that had this big office up on like a second
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floor full of windows where all the techs would sit, but the whole plant was going to be run, you
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know, autonomously. You know, the, the, the machine was going to stuff the envelopes, was going to
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pack the envelopes and boxes, and then they were set. While we were setting the machines, they had
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this Japanese company come in and they were setting, uh, forklifts up, which were all robotic.
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Wow. And they had when they poured the the foundation of the building, they'd set these
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tracks down, these metal tracks down and around that they were. But they had to have these
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Japanese techs go around with them like an iPad. And they were teaching the forklift the route
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that they were supposed to go. Um, you know, same thing. You know, what's going to happen, you know,
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further down the line, you know, this is, you know, five years down the road from when I had that
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conversation about self-driving trucks. Right. Then you got now we got these Japanese guys over here
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programing these forklifts to run themselves, the load trucks and stack pallets. But they had to
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have somebody, you know, teach the thing the routes to go right. And then, you know, we were setting
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machines up. So we were told, you know, not to get in the way of the way of the forklift because
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they haven't said all the things up there to where something got in the way that they would
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stop, they would run us over. So we had to stay off. We had to stay out of the way of the of these
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programmers, because they couldn't guarantee that they were going to stop them before they hit us.
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Wow. That's you know, that's that. And then, uh, after that, I'd say probably
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2000. And I want to say probably about 2012, I was at a truck stop in
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Sweetwater, Texas, and I was walking up to their truck stop, and I seen this,
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this truck out there. And like I said, it had all these cameras and sensors and everything all over
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this truck. I'm like, what in God's name is on that truck? You know, I thought Vipers, you know, was, uh,
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camera happy. But this company is really, really getting really getting out of hand. So I had to
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stop the driver and I says, what in the heck is all over that truck? He says, yeah, we're testing
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out the autonomous truck. Those are sensors and cameras that teach the truck where to go.
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So, I mean, it's from early 2000 to mid 2000. We're up to testing self-driving
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trucks. So our 2026, they're still working on it. Where are we going to be in
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2035? You know. Right, right. And I think what you're describing there is kind of the exponential
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advancement of technology, right. We you had a conversation. Let's let's call it the year 2000.
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We're celebrating the new millennium. The ball's just dropped and somebody brings up autonomous
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trucks. And we laugh at it like it's back to the future. And then five years later, you're in a
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factory that's basically running. It's running itself. And then, you know, only seven short years
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after that, we've got an autonomous truck out on the road testing that you've actually seen and
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talked to the guy, and now all of a sudden we're talking about entire fleets. We're talking about
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private roads. Um, I guess, Kevin, one thing I will say is hearing that you saw that truck all the
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way back in 2012 makes me feel a little bit better, because it does mean that at least some
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companies have been testing this for a very long time. And I think that's what I would like to see.
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Not 2 or 3 years of testing. I want to see 2 or 3 decades of testing. Right. Because we're talking
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about human lives here that are at stake. Exactly. Because I said I when I found the truck
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and I said, I want to say that that that truck I saw in Texas was the same company I was doing. The
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cab was saying Waymo or Waymo or whatever it was. I want to say it was that company that was
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written all over the side of the truck and trailer. Interesting. Okay. Well, that's good to know.
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So, I mean, I guess I will ask you as far as the
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like your your real feelings. Now, of course, we've talked about you've already mentioned it like,
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yeah, as a driver, I want the job security of knowing that they're going to need somebody in
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this truck. How concerned are you actually about this, Kevin, as we sit here in 2026, based on what
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you've seen, the advancements in technology that you know are going on all around you. Um, are you
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worried that maybe before you're done driving, you mentioned earlier that you've got about 15 years
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00:34:18,190 --> 00:34:24,229
left? Um, are you worried that before you're done with those 15 years that that your job might be
356
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at stake? It's a it's in the back of my mind, but I don't worry about it too much because, I mean,
357
00:34:30,990 --> 00:34:36,469
I still I still have my doubts just because I know what it what it takes to run this truck
358
00:34:36,510 --> 00:34:42,350
safely down the road. Mhm. And I just, I mean in my mind I mean I'm no
359
00:34:42,910 --> 00:34:49,759
robotic engineer or nothing, but in my mind I just don't see. I don't see how they can do it. I mean,
360
00:34:49,759 --> 00:34:55,720
I'm not saying that they can't. But, I mean, in the next 15 years.
361
00:34:57,039 --> 00:35:02,600
I mean, it's going to be total. I mean, the 17 years I've been with Cypress, the technology that was in
362
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:09,599
the truck. So I started and what we have today is a huge difference. So what to say they're going
363
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:16,600
to have 15 years from now? I can't say. But I mean, I, I know if it comes down to it, I may have to
364
00:35:16,639 --> 00:35:22,918
I may have to go ahead and go out for early retirement, but hopefully the pendulum has
365
00:35:22,919 --> 00:35:27,199
something for me to do after that. But I'm not sure they will. I'm sure they will. You could
366
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:31,439
always go over there and get a job with Ken, and maybe your job is instead of teaching drivers,
367
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:35,918
maybe you're just training computers, but who knows, man, that's that's out there in the future,
368
00:35:35,919 --> 00:35:40,879
far enough that we don't have to worry about it every single day, right? Yeah. Well, I could go to a
369
00:35:40,879 --> 00:35:44,959
round of Marc Angel and I can just start dispatching, you know? Yeah. Electronic, you know,
370
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:50,209
self-driving trucks. There you go, man. He's. He seemed pretty. He seemed happy up there, man. He
371
00:35:50,209 --> 00:35:56,209
seemed like he was ready to come off the road. So good call back there. I forgot about that. Well,
372
00:35:56,249 --> 00:36:01,409
that's a that's a great, uh, great reference there. I got a fun question here. Well, maybe it's not fun.
373
00:36:01,449 --> 00:36:06,809
We'll find out. Uh, I'm gonna. Make it. Fun. Okay? I'm gonna put you in the driver's seat. You're out
374
00:36:06,810 --> 00:36:11,529
there. Let's say you're on I-10. You're familiar with that one. You're making the long haul from
375
00:36:11,530 --> 00:36:18,249
Jacksonville or Tampa all the way to, uh, San Diego. And there's an autonomous truck
376
00:36:18,249 --> 00:36:24,889
running the same route as you. Are you more comfortable having that truck in front of you or
377
00:36:25,090 --> 00:36:32,049
behind you and why? Kevin. Uh, that's a good question. I want to make you think a little
378
00:36:32,090 --> 00:36:37,609
bit on that. Yeah, I have that. Yeah, that one's definitely got me. I'm still thinking on that one,
379
00:36:37,610 --> 00:36:44,329
but yeah, it's, uh. And, you know, think out loud to, uh, you can think your way through it. I would, I
380
00:36:44,329 --> 00:36:50,540
would almost have to say I'd probably rather be in front of it, because that way I could kind of
381
00:36:50,580 --> 00:36:56,459
see what's going on and kind of control my situation. And I mean, if it hits me, it hits me. But
382
00:36:56,659 --> 00:37:03,580
I mean, I don't know. Yeah, it kind of seems like my just, my logical brain would say the same
383
00:37:03,580 --> 00:37:08,099
thing there Kevin is. I want it behind me because I don't want to have to react to it. I would
384
00:37:08,100 --> 00:37:15,099
rather it has to react to me. Yeah, yeah. Well, we gotta we. When I was, uh,
385
00:37:15,620 --> 00:37:22,419
thinking about becoming a trainer, they had before, they were having us go through the, uh, the
386
00:37:22,419 --> 00:37:29,419
Smith system training system. Oh, yeah. And, uh, one of the Cypress's favorite thing was, you
387
00:37:29,419 --> 00:37:35,299
know, don't be a part of their accident, right? You know, be be prepared and just stay. Stay away, you
388
00:37:35,299 --> 00:37:40,219
know, don't don't get involved in their accident. You know, try to try to avoid the situation. So,
389
00:37:40,979 --> 00:37:46,898
yeah, I would probably rather be out front and then behind it. Yeah, that way I have a little bit
390
00:37:46,899 --> 00:37:52,299
more control of what's going on in front of me. Yeah. And I mean, I would think from the driver's
391
00:37:52,300 --> 00:37:58,779
perspective, too. You've got all this experience of reacting to the way that humans work. And
392
00:37:58,780 --> 00:38:04,020
while it's always different and every human is a little bit different, there's still similarities
393
00:38:04,020 --> 00:38:09,379
in the way that they react to certain situations, which allows you to be able to anticipate it,
394
00:38:09,419 --> 00:38:14,899
especially given all the things that you've seen out here. I kind of wonder what is the
395
00:38:14,939 --> 00:38:21,819
anticipation of random events of these trucks? Like, are they able to, um, what what do they do if
396
00:38:21,820 --> 00:38:26,898
somebody that they're driving behind has a heart attack at the wheel? We know that this happens
397
00:38:26,899 --> 00:38:32,018
from time to time. It happens to truck drivers. It happens to four wheelers. Sometimes people have
398
00:38:32,060 --> 00:38:37,100
health events behind the wheel. And I mean, that is that that literally could look like you're
399
00:38:37,100 --> 00:38:41,509
driving. Everybody's fine. And then all of a sudden somebody swerves across three lanes of traffic
400
00:38:41,509 --> 00:38:47,189
and hits the median. How does. How do you respond to that? I know how you respond to that. You guys
401
00:38:47,189 --> 00:38:51,869
always leave yourself an out. You always trying to give yourself enough room. Should something like
402
00:38:51,870 --> 00:38:56,668
that happen that you can slow down and stop and and you can tell a computer that but can it
403
00:38:56,669 --> 00:39:02,629
really think its way through it? Kevin I, I mean, I don't know what are your thoughts? I mean, just
404
00:39:03,469 --> 00:39:09,629
going on, you know, the truck that I drive with the Ada system and if this truck has a steering
405
00:39:09,629 --> 00:39:15,349
assist, it's not as bad as the Freightliner is, but it does. If I start swerving around my lane, I get
406
00:39:15,350 --> 00:39:22,309
resistance on the wheel and it pulls me back into the lane. But I had a I had a situation where a
407
00:39:22,310 --> 00:39:27,749
car in front of me had slowed down but didn't come to us. Well, yeah, he did come to a stop
408
00:39:27,749 --> 00:39:32,590
because he was losing his lane in a construction zone. And I was anticipating that he, you know,
409
00:39:32,629 --> 00:39:38,909
because he was he was coming up on the cones fast. So I'm like, okay, he's going to need to get in my
410
00:39:38,909 --> 00:39:43,799
lane because I'd already seen the sign that said Lane was closing. So I got over and I'm in the
411
00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:50,039
middle lane now because the right lane is closing, but he's not getting over. And then all of a
412
00:39:50,039 --> 00:39:55,039
sudden he freaks out and he turned to get to my lane, and he stops because he doesn't think that
413
00:39:55,039 --> 00:40:00,439
I'm slowing down and let him in. Well, the Ater system sees the truck not moving in front of me,
414
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:06,679
and my truck pretty much slams on the brakes even though I'm already slowing down. The start slams
415
00:40:06,679 --> 00:40:11,919
on the brakes and the truck comes almost to a stop. I can't release the truck to go until the
416
00:40:11,919 --> 00:40:18,520
truck thinks that the the the problem in front of me is gone. So it took forever for it to recover
417
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:24,199
and now I have to get back up to speed, right? So I couldn't get over into the to the third lane, so I
418
00:40:24,199 --> 00:40:29,439
had to the one fatal system took over. I had I didn't have control of the braking. The truck was
419
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:34,638
going, okay, we're stopping and it basically almost came to a stop. I think I got down to like three
420
00:40:34,639 --> 00:40:40,769
miles an hour before it finally released, And by then that that truck had already gone, because I
421
00:40:40,769 --> 00:40:46,810
had come to such a dramatic stop that he went, okay, I can go. So the truck's already gone, and my
422
00:40:46,810 --> 00:40:51,249
truck is still trying to recover from thinking that it was going to hit that truck. Sure. And I'm
423
00:40:51,249 --> 00:40:57,649
sure that registered as a as an aggressive brake too in your system didn't it? Oh yeah. Right. I mean,
424
00:40:57,689 --> 00:41:02,489
once, once they viewed the video I mean I never got a call on it. I didn't even see it on my, uh,
425
00:41:02,769 --> 00:41:08,769
when I got, when I went on the the week later, it wasn't even on there. So he must have seen the
426
00:41:08,769 --> 00:41:15,529
situation, right? Yep. He did everything right. It was gone. Yeah, but. So the truck, I mean, it
427
00:41:15,569 --> 00:41:21,330
it's all it's kind of overreacted to the situation, but it took forever to recover after
428
00:41:21,330 --> 00:41:27,049
that. You know what? What does the traffic do behind an autonomous truck if something like that
429
00:41:27,050 --> 00:41:34,050
happens. Right. Especially this truck is going down the road. It sees it sees an object that it thinks
430
00:41:34,050 --> 00:41:39,059
it's going to hit. So it's going to stop. Well, what if the vehicles behind it don't know what's going
431
00:41:39,060 --> 00:41:43,659
on, you know? All of a sudden, the self-driving truck stops in the middle of the interstate,
432
00:41:43,860 --> 00:41:50,539
especially on 285, which where I was at in Atlanta. That caused. That causes a heck of a traffic jam.
433
00:41:50,580 --> 00:41:56,100
Yeah. It does. Now, you got this, you know, self-driving truck. That is not that. It was in a
434
00:41:56,100 --> 00:42:02,499
situation. Now it's come to a dead stop. So now it's got to reset all its parameters and then
435
00:42:02,500 --> 00:42:09,499
take off again. At 135 tons on the wheel, which is not a very quick acceleration. And
436
00:42:09,499 --> 00:42:15,099
when you're talking about being on a highway like 285. Yeah. The congestion that you could cause just
437
00:42:15,100 --> 00:42:21,340
with that one event. Kevin, uh, is is probably wild. I mean, you talk about the butterfly effect. You
438
00:42:21,340 --> 00:42:27,979
could cause that traffic jam in Atlanta and feel it all the way out in Savannah. I'm sure. Yeah. I
439
00:42:27,979 --> 00:42:33,339
mean, you go all the way up into Tennessee and down the Florida. Yeah, exactly. In Alabama, I mean,
440
00:42:33,340 --> 00:42:39,668
know, all four directions. You know, it would cause a heck of a backup. Yeah, it really would. Well, and
441
00:42:39,669 --> 00:42:45,309
I think that that's like, that's kind of what those of us that are in this industry or adjacent
442
00:42:45,310 --> 00:42:52,109
to the industry, like I am, um, are, are really wanting to see is like practical applications
443
00:42:52,110 --> 00:42:57,069
here because look, it's it's all sunshine and butterflies when everything goes right. And we
444
00:42:57,070 --> 00:43:02,269
know that, uh, yeah, there's some days out there where it all falls into place. Uh, and, and you
445
00:43:02,269 --> 00:43:07,709
don't have anything that you've got to deal with all day long, Kevin. But those days are few and far
446
00:43:07,710 --> 00:43:12,829
between. Just like the days that are, you know, something crazy. And out of this world happens
447
00:43:12,830 --> 00:43:18,189
that you have to deal with. It's it's the randomness of these events that I want to know if
448
00:43:18,189 --> 00:43:23,550
the computer can compete with. Because I've talked to enough truck drivers to know, Kevin, in four
449
00:43:23,550 --> 00:43:29,589
years of doing this job, that even the the randomness can sometimes weigh really heavy on
450
00:43:29,629 --> 00:43:34,840
you guys. Sometimes it's really stressful. A particularly stressful day where people are just
451
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:39,360
driving out of their minds. They're not giving you room, they're speeding. They're whipping in and out
452
00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:46,359
of traffic. Those days happen, too. So how does a computer compete with that? Well, I get
453
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:52,439
it. I get in situations which happens more often than not. You know, our trucks are governed at 65
454
00:43:52,479 --> 00:43:58,199
miles an hour. Mhm. So I get a guy in front of me that's like
455
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:04,359
almost 100% of the time they're on their phone because they'll, we'll be out on the interstate
456
00:44:04,679 --> 00:44:11,599
speed limit 70 and they're doing 58. And I'm you know, I'm coming up. My truck senses that
457
00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:17,679
the cars are for me. So it's slowing me down. Now I'm doing 55. I get an opening to get around them,
458
00:44:17,679 --> 00:44:21,559
so I get over to get around them. They're done messing with their phone at this point. They look
459
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:25,519
up and they see me in the middle lane trying to get around them. They stomp on it and they go
460
00:44:25,519 --> 00:44:31,969
again. Yep. Oh, now I'm stuck in the middle lane doing 55, they're already back up to 70.
461
00:44:32,490 --> 00:44:37,729
Now everybody's mad at me because I'm holding up traffic. So I get back over in the right lane
462
00:44:37,729 --> 00:44:41,889
where I'm supposed to be, and I'm finally back up to 65 and they're back to messing with their
463
00:44:41,889 --> 00:44:48,169
phone again. Yep, yep. Well what's that? What's that autonomous truck going to do, you know? Sure.
464
00:44:48,809 --> 00:44:55,290
Are they going to just stay at 55. Are they going to maintain 70 and try to get around that car or
465
00:44:55,329 --> 00:45:01,649
you know, that's just how is that going to how is that going to play out? Right. Right. Well I want to
466
00:45:01,649 --> 00:45:07,249
flip this on its head a little bit here, Kevin, because, you know, uh, obviously, you know, where my
467
00:45:07,249 --> 00:45:12,889
allegiance lies. And that is with the human driver. I've met so many of you guys. So many of you have
468
00:45:12,889 --> 00:45:18,290
been gracious with your time and come on to this show and, and, uh, done a fantastic job, yourself
469
00:45:18,290 --> 00:45:24,689
included. And so I've got a real big soft spot in my heart for truck drivers, and I always will. I
470
00:45:24,689 --> 00:45:29,939
think it's a phenomenal group of people that, uh, by and large, the, the, the lion's share of them
471
00:45:29,939 --> 00:45:34,499
would give you the shirt off their back. You guys are always helping each other out. It's a great
472
00:45:34,500 --> 00:45:40,499
group of people at large, is what I've noticed. And so I don't want to see a bunch of people lose
473
00:45:40,500 --> 00:45:46,619
their jobs because trucks are driving themselves now. But I do want to ask you, a very experienced
474
00:45:46,620 --> 00:45:52,939
driver with tons of miles under your belt, you've seen almost all of it. Do you think there is a a
475
00:45:53,139 --> 00:45:59,739
situation or an event where maybe an autonomous truck would have some type of advantage over
476
00:45:59,779 --> 00:46:06,579
a real live human driver? Ram. I told you I had. A good. One. Yeah, I had some good ones
477
00:46:06,580 --> 00:46:13,179
for you today, Kevin. I mean, you know, the one of the biggest problems with, you know,
478
00:46:13,219 --> 00:46:19,060
a person driving a truck is, you know, we do, you know, with the regulations and everything we do
479
00:46:19,100 --> 00:46:26,019
get fatigued. I mean, a self-driving truck won't fall asleep, right? That's a really good truck. A
480
00:46:26,019 --> 00:46:30,979
truck. A self-driving truck doesn't have to take a 30 minute break. Doesn't have to take a ten hour
481
00:46:30,979 --> 00:46:36,539
break. They. You know they're not. They wouldn't be. They wouldn't be subject to any type of time
482
00:46:36,540 --> 00:46:42,418
limit. Mhm. I mean they would they would be you know, of course they would be limited to whatever
483
00:46:42,419 --> 00:46:49,379
the speed of the road is. I mean I would, I, I'm not a fan of, you know, government trucks, even
484
00:46:49,379 --> 00:46:56,378
though I worked for a couple of years as a very low government truck. But. I mean, I would if they
485
00:46:56,419 --> 00:47:03,059
were to put self-driving trucks out there, I would almost want them to lower what the speed of that
486
00:47:03,060 --> 00:47:09,899
truck could do, just, you know, just to slow it down. It'd make it more inconvenient for the traffic
487
00:47:09,899 --> 00:47:15,019
around it. But I think it would be a little bit better if they would maybe give them down to 65
488
00:47:15,019 --> 00:47:20,340
or 60 or something. Yeah. Maybe keep it a little. Bit safer just to let people know that, you know.
489
00:47:20,379 --> 00:47:26,668
Hey, this this is a self-driving truck. Time to give it room. Yeah, to do it so well. Hey, you know.
490
00:47:26,949 --> 00:47:33,509
Having it doing 75 with everybody else. In NASCAR, the, uh, the rookies got to wear the yellow stripe
491
00:47:33,509 --> 00:47:38,790
on the bumper. Kevin, I think it's totally fair to put some type of signifier on an autonomous truck.
492
00:47:38,790 --> 00:47:43,829
If there's no driver, you better paint the thing pink or something so I can see it, because I want
493
00:47:43,870 --> 00:47:50,869
to know. Yeah, well, at this point, you know, they got I mean, I can tell you right now just
494
00:47:50,870 --> 00:47:57,829
from seeing it live in person, if you see a truck that's got, you know, numerous things attached
495
00:47:57,830 --> 00:48:02,669
to the outside of it, chances are there's probably either a driver asleep behind the wheel because
496
00:48:02,669 --> 00:48:09,229
he's probably just the backup guy or the IRA driver at all. Yeah, that's crazy man. I can't
497
00:48:09,229 --> 00:48:14,350
believe where the world is going. You know, another thing I've heard, um, is that it's it's been
498
00:48:14,350 --> 00:48:19,509
brought up. I don't think that it's in, you know, it's not sitting on a law desk somewhere in a
499
00:48:19,510 --> 00:48:25,438
senator's office, but I've heard the mention of maybe having these trucks have their own lane
500
00:48:25,479 --> 00:48:31,839
where there's just a lane that is not for, um, you know, human drivers to operate in. It's kind of
501
00:48:31,879 --> 00:48:36,839
would remind you of a carpool lane, except you're not allowed to jump in it, and these trucks are
502
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:42,999
only allowed to be in it. How would you feel about something like that? Um, kind of the advent of
503
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:50,239
separate but equal. I hate to use that because of its historical context, but, um, would you would you
504
00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:56,479
feel safer, Kevin, if this truck maybe was forced to drive in its own lane? Uh, sort of separate from
505
00:48:56,479 --> 00:49:03,360
the rest of the, uh, the world of traffic? I would kind of like that for myself, but, um.
506
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:10,199
Get you away from all the idiots, right? Yeah. I mean, only Lane, that would be great, but, yeah, it
507
00:49:10,199 --> 00:49:15,439
would, it would, it would be a little bit better if, like you said, if that truck can't leave that lane
508
00:49:15,439 --> 00:49:20,289
and you can't get into that lane, that's that truck lane and that's it. Yeah. That would. That
509
00:49:20,289 --> 00:49:26,089
would be good. But I mean, you can't do that. That's like a zero track. Right. You would limit one of
510
00:49:26,090 --> 00:49:30,129
that. You would limit. Where that truck could go. Eventually that truck is going to have to get in
511
00:49:30,250 --> 00:49:36,249
in with the motoring public. Yeah. And the infrastructure to put that in would be just so
512
00:49:36,250 --> 00:49:42,849
expensive that it would never it would never get off the ground, unfortunately. I mean, it's it's not
513
00:49:42,850 --> 00:49:47,089
like these autonomous truck company is going to have the firm motto is of Cypress. You know, we got
514
00:49:47,090 --> 00:49:52,689
an obligation to the motoring public, right? Right. And that's a big part of it, man, because listen,
515
00:49:52,689 --> 00:49:58,489
we've talked about it on this podcast. You know, one of the things the last time Clay joined us, um,
516
00:49:58,689 --> 00:50:04,889
Clay Hamblin, we talked about nuclear verdicts and predatory verdicts against trucking companies. You
517
00:50:04,889 --> 00:50:10,010
start to take the human element out of your trucks because the human element, we've had lots
518
00:50:10,010 --> 00:50:15,649
of safety directors, uh, on, on many different podcasts tell us the biggest piece of safety
519
00:50:15,649 --> 00:50:20,620
technology in the truck is the driver, and everything else that we put on the trucks comes
520
00:50:20,620 --> 00:50:26,620
after it. Well, it sounds to me like with an autonomous truck, you're taking the biggest piece
521
00:50:26,620 --> 00:50:33,378
of safety equipment away from the truck. So how are we going to you know, what's going to happen?
522
00:50:33,379 --> 00:50:38,060
Are these companies that, you know, this Atlas company that you sent me the article about?
523
00:50:38,100 --> 00:50:44,539
They've only got 28 trucks and they're testing on private roads right now, but their goal is by 2027
524
00:50:44,540 --> 00:50:50,978
to have 100 trucks and to be testing them on public roadways. Okay. Let's assume that that's
525
00:50:50,979 --> 00:50:56,218
going to happen. Well, what happens during the first big pile up? What happens during the first
526
00:50:56,219 --> 00:51:01,419
accident where there's a fatality? Does the lawsuit look the same as it would if there was a
527
00:51:01,419 --> 00:51:06,780
human driver in the seat? Is it worse? Is it less nuclear? I don't know, but you start to ask
528
00:51:06,780 --> 00:51:13,679
yourself, Kevin, can these fleets survive if the accident rate is higher, even by, you know, one
529
00:51:13,679 --> 00:51:19,349
tenth of a percent than what it is with human drivers. Are you going to be able to even live
530
00:51:19,350 --> 00:51:23,709
with all the litigation that's going to come your way as soon as one of these trucks sideswiped
531
00:51:23,749 --> 00:51:30,669
grandma? I mean, what about, like, the situation they had in, uh, just outside of Dallas
532
00:51:30,669 --> 00:51:35,870
on 35, probably about five years ago when they had that ice storm come through in 35, froze over, and
533
00:51:35,870 --> 00:51:41,310
they had 100 car pileup. Boy, that was bad. I remember seeing footage of that I could not and I
534
00:51:41,310 --> 00:51:47,869
mean cars doing like 70 miles an hour into an accident. I mean, it was horrific, Kevin.
535
00:51:48,830 --> 00:51:55,309
I mean, I was a, you know, autonomous truck going to do on ice. Yeah. You know. Okay. Yeah. It
536
00:51:55,310 --> 00:52:02,029
senses okay. Traffic. There's a traffic action up ahead, you know, and it ain't going to be able to
537
00:52:02,029 --> 00:52:08,989
stop 135,000 pounds of load on ice. If it's not going to happen. Right. They're going to
538
00:52:08,989 --> 00:52:14,999
have the same catastrophic result as what they did there in Dallas. It's going to be the same
539
00:52:14,999 --> 00:52:20,839
situation, if not worse, because like you said, you're taking the human factor out of it. Yeah.
540
00:52:20,879 --> 00:52:27,120
Yeah. Well, maybe, maybe the, you know, the driver, you know, in that situation could maybe ditch the
541
00:52:27,120 --> 00:52:31,759
truck, you know, and maybe avoid hitting 5 or 6 cars and they, you know, you're going to destroy
542
00:52:31,759 --> 00:52:36,879
the truck, but, you know, you didn't kill nobody. Exactly, exactly. The autonomous truck going to
543
00:52:36,879 --> 00:52:42,719
have the the foresight, the ditch itself, if it knows that it's either that or run into whatever
544
00:52:42,720 --> 00:52:48,439
is in front of it. Boy, isn't that. A good. Question. Yeah. Isn't that a good question? Because I would
545
00:52:48,439 --> 00:52:53,639
be willing to bet that that autonomous truck, as far as the dollar value on it, is probably
546
00:52:53,639 --> 00:52:59,399
exponentially higher than the truck that you know you were driving because of all the extra
547
00:52:59,399 --> 00:53:06,039
technology. Is that company going to allow that truck to ditch itself over hitting? I mean, you
548
00:53:06,080 --> 00:53:12,209
hope so. Obviously. If not, they're going to get sued into nonexistence anyway. But it's one more
549
00:53:12,249 --> 00:53:18,289
thing to think about, and it just continues to make me wonder, can we ever train these things on
550
00:53:18,290 --> 00:53:23,849
every eventuality? And I don't think so because it's random, right? There's no way you're shuffling
551
00:53:23,850 --> 00:53:28,769
a deck of cards here. Um, you know, I read a stat the other day that every time you shuffle a deck
552
00:53:28,769 --> 00:53:35,489
of cards, it's likely that it's the first time that it's ever been in that order. Uh, because of
553
00:53:35,490 --> 00:53:41,048
how many different, um, you know, uh, eventualities there are. It's kind of like that with driving.
554
00:53:41,049 --> 00:53:47,049
There's just no way to predict it. I don't know, man. I you know, I was I was thinking that I
555
00:53:47,049 --> 00:53:52,009
probably wouldn't change my mind much after talking to you here, Kevin and I, I don't think
556
00:53:52,010 --> 00:53:59,009
that I have, um, I you know, I'm not against the advent of technology. I think that if we could get
557
00:53:59,010 --> 00:54:03,729
safer out there on the road, that's what you guys want. That's what everybody wants. I don't know
558
00:54:03,729 --> 00:54:10,609
that taking the driver away from the situation is the way to get safer. I think that after spending
559
00:54:10,610 --> 00:54:16,648
so many hundreds of hours of my life talking to so many drivers that have millions of safe miles
560
00:54:16,649 --> 00:54:22,369
under their belt, it just doesn't seem that easy. It doesn't seem like we can just go, oh, a machine
561
00:54:22,370 --> 00:54:27,889
will learn it and put an AI brain in it and tell it to drive forward and everything works, I think.
562
00:54:27,929 --> 00:54:33,810
I feel like we might still be a decade away, and, uh, there's probably a lot of people out there
563
00:54:33,810 --> 00:54:39,569
listening to this, Kevin, that think I'm crazy for saying that, but I don't know, man. You guys, you
564
00:54:39,570 --> 00:54:44,090
guys know a lot about what goes on out there, and you don't sound that comfortable. You already told
565
00:54:44,090 --> 00:54:51,089
me, man. Get that thing behind me. Get it in my rearview mirror. Oh, well, I mean, we've been talking
566
00:54:51,090 --> 00:54:57,689
about, you know, the truck driving and driving itself, you know. You know, Cypress is a flatbed
567
00:54:57,690 --> 00:55:02,809
company. Okay? Yeah, we gotta drive the truck forward, but, you know, we gotta deliver the load.
568
00:55:02,969 --> 00:55:08,899
Yep. And we got, you know, we got a tarpon on Tucker load. How how how are they going to, you know,
569
00:55:08,939 --> 00:55:15,139
accommodate that, you know? How are they going to get they get the robot to tighten the load down
570
00:55:15,139 --> 00:55:20,220
and tarp the load and all that. Yeah. And they're unloading it. Yeah. They got autonomous forklifts
571
00:55:20,220 --> 00:55:26,860
and all that. I get that part of it. But I mean, the the the fact, you know, you know, what do you
572
00:55:26,860 --> 00:55:32,819
do. What does that truck do when you know you're going down the road and you're strapped to get
573
00:55:32,819 --> 00:55:39,619
loose? Exactly. They get out of self tightening straps. Man, I doubt it. I lose on. It. I would think,
574
00:55:39,620 --> 00:55:44,300
uh, if you're hauling wallboard, self tightening straps might provide more of a problem than what
575
00:55:44,300 --> 00:55:49,620
they would solve. Because sooner or later, it's gonna pinch that stack of wallboard down into
576
00:55:49,659 --> 00:55:55,300
dust, man. And listen. Exactly. Uh, I'll be honest with you, if I'm out driving in my Silverado and
577
00:55:55,300 --> 00:56:01,219
I'm behind a Cypress flatbed truck, I would much rather that somebody that Cecil Clark has trained,
578
00:56:01,219 --> 00:56:07,149
or Cecil Clark himself has strapped that load down and secured it, rather than a computer or a
579
00:56:07,149 --> 00:56:13,469
robot doing it 100% every day of the week and twice on Sunday put me behind the Cecil or Cecil
580
00:56:13,510 --> 00:56:20,350
trained load. I will say that right now. I mean, I thought about that too. I was like, I look
581
00:56:20,430 --> 00:56:25,749
okay, we got someone to drive the truck. Now you're gonna have to have somebody to work the word. Yep.
582
00:56:25,790 --> 00:56:29,669
I mean, are you gonna you gotta hire a guy to sit in the truck while the truck does all the driving.
583
00:56:29,669 --> 00:56:34,389
He's going to do all the loading and unloading. Boy, I bet you he'd make a lot less money than the
584
00:56:34,389 --> 00:56:40,069
guy actually driving that truck, wouldn't he? I don't know if I'd want to be the passenger of a
585
00:56:40,070 --> 00:56:45,350
self-driving truck, either. No. You're just. I mean, you're you're kind of the slave to the robot at
586
00:56:45,350 --> 00:56:49,509
that point in time. You got to get out and do its bidding for it because it can't handle the job
587
00:56:49,509 --> 00:56:56,109
itself. Right? Yeah, right. Well, Kevin, this has been great, man. I've had you on here for almost an hour.
588
00:56:56,110 --> 00:57:00,749
I know that you're done with your day. I want to let you get back to, uh, to relaxing and resting up
589
00:57:00,750 --> 00:57:05,359
for the next load that you've got. But as always going to give you some time for your final
590
00:57:05,360 --> 00:57:09,959
thoughts here today. I really appreciate you coming to me with this, and I want to tell all the
591
00:57:09,959 --> 00:57:14,479
rest of the drivers out there that are listening to this right now. Um, you know, a lot of the stuff
592
00:57:14,480 --> 00:57:19,079
that we come up with to talk about on this show, we we talk to management and we are talking to
593
00:57:19,119 --> 00:57:25,600
drivers and we're coming up with ideas ourselves. This one was 100% Kevin. Kevin got in touch with
594
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:30,918
me, I don't know, probably a couple months ago and said, listen, I saw this truck out there. I'd really
595
00:57:30,919 --> 00:57:35,918
like to talk about this. And while it did take us some time to work it in, we were able to work this
596
00:57:35,919 --> 00:57:41,199
episode in that is available to every single Cypress driver out there. If you're listening to
597
00:57:41,240 --> 00:57:45,159
this and there's something that you've seen or something that you've experienced out there that
598
00:57:45,159 --> 00:57:51,760
you would like us to produce an episode about, all you got to do is head on over to podcast.cypresstruck.com and
599
00:57:51,760 --> 00:57:58,759
email me. Or if you've got my phone number, use it, send me a text, uh, put in a call. I will definitely
600
00:57:58,759 --> 00:58:04,888
try my damnedest to get your episode moving. I gotta get it approved. I'm not the end all be all.
601
00:58:05,170 --> 00:58:10,570
But, Kevin, I wanted to use you as an example here. Let the other drivers know that, um, if they've got
602
00:58:10,570 --> 00:58:17,009
something they want to talk about. Man, I'm all ears, right? You can attest to that. Yes, I can, I
603
00:58:17,009 --> 00:58:21,529
mean, there, I'll come up. I'll come. I'll put you a couple messages in the past where we've come up
604
00:58:21,529 --> 00:58:28,129
with an episode and had a good time doing it. So. Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. So and I
605
00:58:28,129 --> 00:58:32,888
appreciate it, man I appreciate it. Like, you don't know, it makes my job a little bit easier to have
606
00:58:32,889 --> 00:58:39,489
you guys helping me out with content from time to time. So, uh, Kevin Barritt, man, I once again
607
00:58:39,490 --> 00:58:44,089
greatly appreciate the time. Final thoughts from you. Before we let you go here on our autonomous
608
00:58:44,090 --> 00:58:50,489
truck conversation, my friend. Uh, final thought is, you know, if you're if you're worried
609
00:58:50,489 --> 00:58:56,129
about, uh, you know, losing your job here at Cypress to self-driving trucks, I don't think the villains
610
00:58:56,130 --> 00:59:02,899
are there yet. I think we're pretty much set for a while. Um, but, uh, yeah,
611
00:59:02,979 --> 00:59:08,339
just if you're out there, you know, stay safe, you know, do your job properly. You know, you're the
612
00:59:08,340 --> 00:59:14,659
professional driver. Be the professional driver. You know, think think safety. To 100% of the time.
613
00:59:15,300 --> 00:59:21,179
And, uh, you know, just I want to do a quick shout out to Cypress for, you know, putting up with me for
614
00:59:21,179 --> 00:59:26,579
17 years. It's a great company to work for. And I love the people I work with. And I wouldn't have
615
00:59:26,580 --> 00:59:32,100
it any other way. Great stuff, Kevin. And and I don't think we'd have it any other way either. Man,
616
00:59:32,100 --> 00:59:36,899
we always appreciate the time. Thank you so much. You be safe out there. Get some rest and we'll
617
00:59:36,899 --> 00:59:40,499
talk to you next time, okay? All right. Appreciate it Marcus.
618
00:59:48,699 --> 00:59:53,899
Great stuff from Kevin there. Really appreciate his time and bringing me this topic again. This
619
00:59:53,900 --> 00:59:58,949
was something that he just reached out and said, hey, uh, I saw this. Did you want to talk about it?
620
00:59:58,990 --> 01:00:03,789
Feels like it would make a cool podcast episode and Bing bang boom took us a little while, but we
621
01:00:03,790 --> 01:00:08,789
got it done. We're across the finish line with it now, and we greatly appreciate Kevin, uh, for not
622
01:00:08,790 --> 01:00:15,109
only bringing us the topic, but for coming on to discuss it now. I do have a few facts here. I did
623
01:00:15,109 --> 01:00:21,189
some research because, well, that's part of my job. I'm supposed to be well informed and, uh, I, I have
624
01:00:21,190 --> 01:00:27,429
a little bit of information for you here that I just wanted to share. As of September 2026, we're
625
01:00:27,429 --> 01:00:34,189
in a fascinating middle ground right now. Genuine commercial level four trucking has arrived.
626
01:00:34,189 --> 01:00:39,389
And I think that one of the most important distinctions that we can make on this episode is
627
01:00:39,389 --> 01:00:44,870
to tell you the difference between level four autonomous trucking and level five autonomous
628
01:00:44,870 --> 01:00:51,429
trucking. Uh, NHTSA automation scale is useful because people throw around terms like
629
01:00:51,429 --> 01:00:57,879
self-driving, very loosely, autonomous, very loosely, but there are starting to sort of
630
01:00:57,920 --> 01:01:03,639
define these things and put them in their own lanes, not their own physical lanes, but their own.
631
01:01:03,639 --> 01:01:09,519
Um, I guess lanes in the law, I guess, is one way you would put it, but let's go through it real
632
01:01:09,519 --> 01:01:16,519
quick. Um, very important distinction here. Level four is considered high automation. What does
633
01:01:16,520 --> 01:01:22,759
that mean? Well, according to the NHTSA, the vehicle can perform the entire driving task without a
634
01:01:22,759 --> 01:01:28,560
human driver within a limited operating environment. That's the key part right there.
635
01:01:28,560 --> 01:01:34,800
Limited operating environment. That limitation might involve specific highways, mapped routes,
636
01:01:34,840 --> 01:01:41,840
weather conditions, geographic areas, or other restrictions. The NHTSA says a human driver
637
01:01:41,840 --> 01:01:48,719
isn't needed while the system is operating within those limits. So if for whatever reason, that
638
01:01:48,719 --> 01:01:54,889
truck's route is going to take it out of those limited circumstances, then a driver would have to
639
01:01:54,929 --> 01:02:01,648
assume at least some sort of supervisory role or control over that truck to have it
640
01:02:01,649 --> 01:02:08,049
maintain its level four status. Now, level five is considered by the
641
01:02:08,050 --> 01:02:15,050
NHTSA to be full automation. And this is the theoretical end game of autonomous trucking. Okay.
642
01:02:15,050 --> 01:02:21,969
And I want you guys to really hear me say theoretical end game. This is where no driver is
643
01:02:21,970 --> 01:02:28,929
required. Any road, any conditions, anywhere a human can drive. Now, I'm happy to tell you
644
01:02:28,929 --> 01:02:34,928
right now that the NHTSA says level five currently isn't available. So even if you've got
645
01:02:34,929 --> 01:02:39,409
somebody out there that tells you, hey, I saw this and it was ripping all the way across the United
646
01:02:39,409 --> 01:02:45,089
States. Rain, snow, sleet, hail, it didn't matter. It was running 24 over seven. There was no driver
647
01:02:45,089 --> 01:02:51,769
anywhere in in sight. It that's just not true yet. Okay. Controlled environments for these
648
01:02:51,770 --> 01:02:58,009
things. It's very true. Kevin did, in fact see one. Um, but one thing that I can tell you about where
649
01:02:58,009 --> 01:03:03,650
he saw this is it's out there towards the Permian Basin in West Texas, which is where they're
650
01:03:03,650 --> 01:03:10,090
testing a lot of these things. And that's because this is a kind of a, uh, highly industrialized area.
651
01:03:10,129 --> 01:03:15,489
Right? They pump a lot of oil out of the ground out there in West Texas, in the Permian Basin. And
652
01:03:15,569 --> 01:03:22,129
because of that, they have a lot of roads that are not really used for general traffic. They've got a
653
01:03:22,130 --> 01:03:28,049
lot of, uh, what you might call industrial routes out there. Another part of it, you get some wind
654
01:03:28,049 --> 01:03:34,809
out there for sure. It's a very windblown, dusty place. Um, but as far as the the crazy weather is
655
01:03:34,810 --> 01:03:39,569
concerned, you're not going to be getting those huge ice storms like the one that Kevin and I
656
01:03:39,569 --> 01:03:46,289
talked about on I-35. Um, very often out there in West Texas, if really ever. Um, and
657
01:03:46,289 --> 01:03:51,779
so these trucks are able to operate on these industrial roads in a controlled environment.
658
01:03:51,780 --> 01:03:58,499
That's level four. Yes. It's happening. Um, it's it's a little bit eye popping that it is happening, but
659
01:03:58,500 --> 01:04:05,259
it is. We have driverless trucks. We do not have trucks that can replace a human driver everywhere.
660
01:04:05,260 --> 01:04:10,899
In fact, I might even argue we're not even really that close to that at this point in time. The
661
01:04:10,899 --> 01:04:15,860
trucks that Kevin encountered are almost certainly level four, uh, conquering specific
662
01:04:15,860 --> 01:04:21,299
routes and operating environments. First, rather than trying to solve every road in America
663
01:04:21,340 --> 01:04:26,779
simultaneously. This is what makes me think we might be ten years away from this at at best.
664
01:04:26,780 --> 01:04:33,780
Right now, the interstate system in the United States is immensely complicated. Okay.
665
01:04:33,820 --> 01:04:38,820
I mean, when was the last time you were on an interstate and you came to an interchange and
666
01:04:38,820 --> 01:04:45,179
you've got six lanes going one way, and there are, uh, green signs with yellow all over them and exit
667
01:04:45,180 --> 01:04:50,508
only here and this way to westbound and this way. The eastbound and southbound. Northbound. It's
668
01:04:50,509 --> 01:04:55,789
crazy. And to think that automatically, uh, a driverless truck is just going to be able to
669
01:04:55,830 --> 01:04:59,550
slide into the right lane. Everything's going to work out perfect, and it's going to make it there.
670
01:04:59,590 --> 01:05:03,428
Look, I don't know if we're there yet, and I'm I'm comfortable saying that we're not there yet
671
01:05:03,429 --> 01:05:08,750
because we are there when it comes to the human element of it. Okay. We got a lot of good truck
672
01:05:08,750 --> 01:05:13,469
drivers out there on the roads of this great country, and, uh, quite a few of them reside right
673
01:05:13,469 --> 01:05:19,549
here at Cypress. Now, there is a big development here. There are trucks. Like I said, they're running
674
01:05:19,550 --> 01:05:25,229
without drivers. Aurora is one company that's operating class eight trucks with nobody in the
675
01:05:25,229 --> 01:05:31,829
driver's seat. In July of this year, 2026, Aurora launched its second generation driverless trucks
676
01:05:31,830 --> 01:05:37,748
built on the international LTE platform. The company says that although roadside assistance
677
01:05:37,749 --> 01:05:43,949
employees may occasionally ride in a rear seat, that person isn't supervising or driving the
678
01:05:43,949 --> 01:05:50,839
truck, and Aurora is trying to scale very quickly with this. In its July 29th shareholder report, the
679
01:05:50,840 --> 01:05:57,759
company said it was fully allocated to exit 2026 with 200 driverless trucks operating.
680
01:05:57,840 --> 01:06:03,679
Aurora also said Volvo Autonomous Solutions was already hauling commercial freight in Texas using
681
01:06:03,679 --> 01:06:10,479
the Volvo VML autonomous trucks powered by Aurora's system. Now, Kodiak AI
682
01:06:10,560 --> 01:06:15,359
is the one that we actually talked about there involved with the Atlas trucks. Kevin sent us that
683
01:06:15,360 --> 01:06:20,039
article. I was giving you some facts. And, uh, that article was actually from the spring of this year.
684
01:06:20,040 --> 01:06:25,999
So I can update those facts a little bit. Uh. They're there. Kodiak AI is a major player in this
685
01:06:25,999 --> 01:06:31,279
game, and its development gives a terrific example because the trucks aren't simply running around
686
01:06:31,280 --> 01:06:37,199
empty for demonstrations. They're working, uh, Kodiak powered trucks are hauling frack sand for
687
01:06:37,199 --> 01:06:43,889
Atlas Energy Solutions out there in the Permian Basin in West Texas. There are 35 customer
688
01:06:43,930 --> 01:06:49,209
owned driverless trucks. I think that's really interesting point here. We're not talking about a
689
01:06:49,209 --> 01:06:55,609
fleet that is run independently with 35 trucks. Each one of these trucks is owned by a
690
01:06:55,610 --> 01:07:01,969
customer that utilizes the service. 40,000 hours of paid driverless operation,
691
01:07:02,530 --> 01:07:08,889
2000 plus loads delivered, and more than 300,000 tons of freight hauled during
692
01:07:08,889 --> 01:07:15,250
Q2 alone. If you add that to the 450,000 tons of freight that they hauled in Q1 that we talked
693
01:07:15,250 --> 01:07:21,969
about, you're sitting here at three quarters of a million tons hauled by these driverless trucks. At
694
01:07:21,970 --> 01:07:27,689
this point, no humans in the cab. And Kodiak did say earlier this month that all 35 of those
695
01:07:27,690 --> 01:07:33,408
trucks were operating commercially, with nobody aboard. And Kodiak and Atlas have already
696
01:07:33,409 --> 01:07:39,570
demonstrated an autonomous truck pulling three trailers simultaneously. We talked about that, a
697
01:07:39,570 --> 01:07:46,539
triple combo out there weighing more than a quarter million pounds. Um, that's that's, uh, that's
698
01:07:46,580 --> 01:07:51,179
eye popping. To say the least. And a little bit scary. I'm not going to lie to you. Um, we have to
699
01:07:51,220 --> 01:07:56,939
think about the safety aspect of this. It is the largest aspect of what everyone listening to this
700
01:07:56,940 --> 01:08:03,059
podcast does for a living. And with so many safety directors telling me the biggest piece of safety
701
01:08:03,059 --> 01:08:09,740
technology in the truck is the driver, I wonder, can we really be as safe as a human
702
01:08:09,740 --> 01:08:14,899
driver when we've got a quarter million pounds tied to our back and we're running a triple combo?
703
01:08:14,939 --> 01:08:20,859
I don't buy it at this point in time. I know it's 2026. I know that I have a supercomputer in my
704
01:08:20,859 --> 01:08:25,819
pocket. I walk around with it all day. And by the way, cheers to you high school algebra teacher,
705
01:08:25,819 --> 01:08:30,619
telling me I would not ever be walking around with a calculator in my pocket. You're right. I
706
01:08:30,620 --> 01:08:35,419
have a complete world building machine in my pocket. Who would have been naive enough to think
707
01:08:35,419 --> 01:08:42,310
it would only be a calculator, but I digress. I think safety is the biggest issue
708
01:08:42,349 --> 01:08:49,229
here. I think that it's very important to you to know that what's happening right now is
709
01:08:49,230 --> 01:08:53,909
these companies are are using their own data, they're collecting their own data. They're
710
01:08:53,950 --> 01:09:00,870
analyzing their own data. And this hasn't been looked at again by maybe a committee, like
711
01:09:00,870 --> 01:09:07,668
a government committee. Okay. Um, Kodiak will tell you that they are I think 93%
712
01:09:07,669 --> 01:09:14,028
safe is what it says. It says 90. Kodiak describes its long haul safety case as
713
01:09:14,029 --> 01:09:20,749
93% complete as of the end of August this year. But the important caveat is it's its
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own internal autonomy, autonomy readiness measure. God, this is alphabet soup for me.
715
01:09:27,229 --> 01:09:33,869
Sometimes it's not a government declaring that the technology is 93% safe. It's Kodiak AI looking
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at their own work and saying, good job, guys, 93% safe. Those are two very different things. Okay. You
717
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can't just have the self-policing of a entrepreneurial endeavor and
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01:09:46,560 --> 01:09:53,559
expect them not to cut some corners and maybe gloss over a few issues. So until we can say that,
719
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uh, you know, a government, our government has looked at this and said that it's 93% safe or
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more. Um, I don't think we're moving forward with this fully autonomous driverless truck sharing
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the road and completely replacing human drivers. I just don't think we're there yet. I think we're
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gonna see it. I think it'll definitely happen in our lifetime. I don't know when, uh, you heard Kevin
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say he's got about 15 years left. He's feeling pretty comfortable about being able to work those
724
01:10:19,079 --> 01:10:24,680
15 years out right where he's at. Uh, but even if not, it looks like he could have a desk in his
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01:10:24,680 --> 01:10:29,359
future. We'll never know, uh, until we actually cross that bridge. But I want to say thank you to
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Kevin again for coming in here and bringing me this story and just being willing to sit down and
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talk about it. I asked some goofy questions from time to time, and I don't give these guys much
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01:10:38,799 --> 01:10:44,159
preparation before I just hit them with it. So really good stuff from Kevin today. This is the
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01:10:44,160 --> 01:10:49,758
world that we live in. I would love to hear what you, the listener out there, thinks about it. Head
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01:10:49,759 --> 01:10:55,879
on over to the website podcast.cypresstruck.com and send me an email. What are your thoughts? What have
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01:10:55,879 --> 01:11:02,879
you seen out there? Where do you think it's going? How far away from having fully autonomous trucks,
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01:11:02,919 --> 01:11:08,878
traveling the roads and operating in any condition with impunity? Do you think we are?
733
01:11:09,439 --> 01:11:14,759
Because I'll tell you, these things can operate. You know, Kevin brought it up. The fatigue part of
734
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it is the one part that the computer might have over the human. It's never going to get fatigued.
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It can be out there hauling 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it's never going to get tired.
736
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It's going to need maintenance. It's going to need, you know, repair and all the regular things that
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01:11:28,319 --> 01:11:32,879
the equipment does need. But it doesn't have that human factor of needing to shut it all down and
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01:11:32,879 --> 01:11:38,409
have dreams for 7 or 8 hours a night. And that is something that I think gives a lot of truck
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01:11:38,409 --> 01:11:43,689
drivers pause. Because you're sitting here looking at a computer that can run harder than you can,
740
01:11:43,729 --> 01:11:49,169
and that's not whether or not you can do it has nothing to do with your skill set or your ability,
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or even the level of rest that you've got. All it has to do with is the laws that you are bound by.
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01:11:54,329 --> 01:12:01,289
And, uh, makes me wonder once this is actually a proven technology and we know it's safe because,
743
01:12:01,329 --> 01:12:07,409
look, they'll keep testing this for 50 or 60 years until they do make it safe. We might be a decade
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01:12:07,410 --> 01:12:12,729
out. We could be a century out. They'll keep moving forward on this until it provides them a reason
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01:12:12,729 --> 01:12:19,450
not to. And I don't see that happening anytime soon. So when this actually happens, are we going
746
01:12:19,450 --> 01:12:23,850
to have some type of legislation that's going to limit the operating hours of these trucks so that
747
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we can continue to give human drivers jobs that they greatly need so that they can support their
748
01:12:29,809 --> 01:12:35,099
family, put food on the plate, build a retirement. You know, these are all questions we're going to
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01:12:35,100 --> 01:12:40,339
have to answer. I don't have answers to them. I've got opinions. I've got a pocket full of those. And
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01:12:40,339 --> 01:12:45,299
I'm willing to dish those out any time anybody asked. So let's start the conversation. Send me an
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01:12:45,299 --> 01:12:51,140
email right now. Uh, and, and just let me know your thoughts. I mean, we've given you a lot. We've
752
01:12:51,180 --> 01:12:55,219
talked about this for over an hour today. I know it's stirred some thoughts up in your mind, and I
753
01:12:55,220 --> 01:12:59,740
would really love to hear him. Uh, because this is an episode that we could easily do a follow up to.
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01:12:59,740 --> 01:13:05,659
In fact, we're already trying to, uh, look for sort of an industry expert to talk about this part of
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01:13:05,660 --> 01:13:11,499
the trucking industry. Uh, so if you have thoughts that you want to share, send them to me by heading
756
01:13:11,500 --> 01:13:17,579
over to podcast.cypresstruck.com and sending me an email, because I will read your comments. And if we can
757
01:13:17,620 --> 01:13:22,980
get this industry expert on the phone and actually get an interview with him, I will ask
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01:13:22,980 --> 01:13:27,859
your questions to him. Somebody that's constantly in this, somebody that researches it, studies it,
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01:13:27,860 --> 01:13:34,789
covers it for a living. Uh, so send in those questions ASAP. Thank you all, Cypress and Sun Belt
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01:13:34,790 --> 01:13:40,749
for being here today. Episode 39 was a rousing success. Big thanks once again to Kevin Barritt.
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01:13:40,750 --> 01:13:47,589
And, uh, we do want to send a little, uh, thought out there to, uh, Shannon Brumm. He was, uh, set to
762
01:13:47,629 --> 01:13:52,189
join us today, but he ended up, uh, with some kind of bug. He's a little under the weather, so we just
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01:13:52,189 --> 01:13:57,069
want to send a quick get well soon out there to Shannon. Uh, sure. He's already on the mend. Thanks,
764
01:13:57,069 --> 01:14:02,028
everybody, for listening today. Be safe out there, Cypress and Sun Belt, and we will see you next week
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01:14:02,029 --> 01:14:08,069
for another hour of content. Wednesday, 5 a.m. local time, right here for the Cypress Truck Lines
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01:14:08,069 --> 01:14:09,029
podcast.