Driverless trucks on a road near you?
At first blush, the Times Free Press headline Thursday was a heart-stopper.
"Area eyed as testbed for driverless trucking," it read, giving way to a vision of runaway trucks careening over the Missionary Ridge section of Interstate 24 that most Chattanoogans know as "the Ridge cut."
The story explained that Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director Thomas Zacharia told a crowd at the city's Edney Innovation Center that ORNL is seeking funds for a project to explore "autonomous driving and long-haul trucking" here because Chattanooga already is a trucking and logistics hub. We have two of the nation's biggest long-haul trucking companies - Covenant Transportation Group and U.S. Xpress Enterprises. We also are home to logistics innovators: Domestic freight scheduling business Access America grew quickly here before merging first with Coyote Logistics and then United Parcel Service, and Inc. magazine recently ranked Chattanooga one of the top growth cities for the country's promising logistics companies.
Still - driverless trucks?
But truth be told, the developing technology could make our interstates both safer and less congested, while saving millions for shipping and trucking companies.
Techcrunch.com wrote last year that more people would be killed by the end of 2016 in traffic accidents involving trucks than in all domestic airline crashes in the last 45 years combined. At the same time, more truck drivers were killed on the job, 835, than workers in any other U.S. occupation.
As for money savings? Shipping a full truckload from L.A. to New York costs about $4,500, according to Techcrunch, with labor representing 75 percent of that cost. Additionally, where drivers are restricted by law from driving more than 11 hours a day without taking an 8-hour break, a driverless truck can drive nearly 24 hours per day - effectively doubling the output of the U.S. transportation network at 25 percent of the cost.
But there is a down side. Driverless trucks will do to trucking jobs what robots did to manufacturing and what mountaintop removal and alternative energies have done to coal miners. It will be a jobs killer.
Techcrunch estimates more than 1.6 million Americans work as truck drivers, making it the most common job in 29 states and about 1 percent of the U.S. workforce. That doesn't factor in profit and job losses at gas stations, highway diners, rest stops, motels and other businesses that cater to truckers.
ORNL's Zacharia acknowledges the potential jobs disruption, and he says the social costs should be studied, as truck driving is a job where one doesn't need a college degree to earn a good living.
Will Chattanooga be the testbed for this as well?
TVA's shrinking power demand takes bite
Speaking of changes, we'll all be paying more for our electricity beginning Oct. 1.
Our bills will increase so the Tennessee Valley Authority can continue to trim its jobs and operating expenses while putting an extra $500 million into TVA's underfunded pension plan.
Since 2013, TVA has cut its staff by more than 20 percent and trimmed its annual operating expenses by $800 million.
Nonetheless, the typical Chattanooga homeowner will soon pay nearly $2 more a month - even while our demand for power is stagnating as we adopt more energy-efficient lighting and appliances.
In this instance, technological breakthroughs aren't directly taking TVA jobs.
And they aren't directly saving us money either, since our electric bills are rising.
But employing energy-efficient technologies is still the right thing to do.
New cameras boost police eyes
Kudos to new Chattanooga police Chief David Roddy for spending a portion of his first day on the job meeting with community members and explaining the department's newest resource and another technology advancement - the real-time intelligence center that uses video footage from cameras at fixed locations throughout the city.
In February, the city council approved $750,000 in cameras, software and video networking tools for the center. A portion of that included 15 pole-mounted cameras that have been placed in high crime areas and boldly marked.
If it seems a bit Big Brother-ish, consider that the cameras and the center - outfitted with analysts watching a wall of big screens and computers, played an instrumental role in securing the arrests of four gang members allegedly involved in an early June shooting that wounded an 8-year-old boy. Video footage allowed officers to identify a suspect vehicle in that shooting, leading to the arrests.
In this case, it's a sure bet that high-tech in the form of cameras and other surveillance gadgets will not replace cop jobs.
What they will do - and are doing - however, is putting more police "eyes" on the streets. Additionally, the video provides a fearless witness, even if real live witnesses are too timid to come forward or testify.