> and today’s large trucks are so computerized that they operate almost like airplanes

Nonsense. Almost no vehicle even comes with anything like this installed. Some carriers will add driver monitoring computers, and they will emit tones under certain conditions, hard breaking, lane departure, too little following distance; however, to compare these simple alerts to the level of automation in an aircraft is just daffy.

Just finding a GPS that understands vehicle heights and bridge underpass limits is still a significant challenge. So these are never built into any truck I've ever seen. Every driver has a third party device connected up for this purpose. Since those do a terrible job with satellite views most drivers _also_ use a cellphone for the additional navigation assistance it can provide.

On top of that you have things like Jake Breaks, Air Suspension controls, and Differential controls that are important for operating the vehicle but are not at all automated.

Another factor is weight distribuiton. The truck has nothing for this. After you pick up your load you're probably going to hit a Love's or other fuel station so you can use the CAT scale to weigh your truck. If there is too much weight on one axle you need to move your tandems to redistribute the weight. You can be underweight but still get an overweight ticket if you don't manage this correctly. California has specific limits as to how far your axle can be from your kingpin.

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dylan604 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Just finding a GPS that understands vehicle heights and bridge underpass limits is still a significant challenge

Apparently for human drivers as well. Just this weekend, an overpass near my house had a rig stuck because the driver failed to realize his load was taller than the overpass.

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sandworm101 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Might be an incorrect sign. It does happen. A road gets paved and now is a couple inches higher and nobody bothers to change the sign. Any new bump, even one not directly under the bridge, can cause a collision. We cannot expect drivers to get out and measure every underpass ... thats what the signs are for!

	▲	wat10000 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Or look up 11foot8 videos and watch a multitude of dingbat drivers rip the roofs off their vehicles despite correct signage and a flashing warning.

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bahmboo 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes this jumped out at me too. It isn't remotely true. The opposite is more accurate: I'd wager that at least half the trucks on the road are built more like small planes from the 60s WRT to operational systems.

	▲	cucumber3732842 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Mixing and matching local-ish trucking vs OTR is like mix and matching "shootings that happen at schools" with "shootings that target a school". You lose resolution on both issues and it's counterproductive if your goal is to understand either. The commercial (i.e. CDL requiring 26k+) fleet is fairly bimodal, two fleets if you will. You've got local and local-ish small carriers operating bottom dollar box trucks and tri-axle mack dumps from the 80s. Your average OTR truck is full of cameras and nannies and owned by a mega fleet. The owner operators in their long nose petes exist but are rare. Yeah I'm generalizing here and there's a continuum between all these but still.

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adolph 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> weight distribuiton. The truck has nothing for this

Could this be inferred from the air suspension controls?

https://www.airliftcompany.com/workshop/finding-correct-air-...

	▲	shibapuppie 7 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The fancier modern trucks have air pressure sensors calibrated to the weight of the truck, so any extra airbag pressure must be your load.
	▲	actionfromafar 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Damn. There's a product in there somewhere.