Truck carrying secured Apple payload crashes in San Jose, killing one
A box truck carrying "a very special load" for Apple reportedly crashed on Highway 101 in San Jose on the morning of Jan. 9, injuring one man and killing another, 64-year-old Richard Bartolo.
The two are retired police officers and were armed to protect themselves, according to an NBC Bay Area source. The survivor was the driver, who said he fell asleep at the wheel shortly after 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday while driving north out of Los Angeles. Bartolo was asleep in the back of the cabin.
"There are a lot of questions that still remain open, which is why we are continuing the investigation," said a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, Ross Lee. He did note that the drivers kept a mandatory log and appears to have adhered to rest schedules mandated by law.
NBC cited several sources in saying that the victims were working for SIS Security and transporting "secret" Apple cargo. Apple neither confirmed nor denied that it owned the contents of the vehicle.
While the truck was presumably heading toward Apple Park or 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, the company keeps virtually all of its research projects under a shroud, even minor hardware updates. The company is known to be working on self-driving car technology, and is likely building an augmented reality headset.
AppleInsider's sources inside Apple not authorized to speak on behalf of the company believe that the vehicle was under Apple contract at the time, but refused comment on possible contents. We have learned that the company that employed the drivers, SIS Security, does the vast majority of Apple's land-based secure transport, ranging from the mundane like shredded document disposal, to prototype device transport. It does not appear that anything has been stolen from the mostly unladen but not empty vehicle, and no foul play is suspected.
The two are retired police officers and were armed to protect themselves, according to an NBC Bay Area source. The survivor was the driver, who said he fell asleep at the wheel shortly after 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday while driving north out of Los Angeles. Bartolo was asleep in the back of the cabin.
"There are a lot of questions that still remain open, which is why we are continuing the investigation," said a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, Ross Lee. He did note that the drivers kept a mandatory log and appears to have adhered to rest schedules mandated by law.
NBC cited several sources in saying that the victims were working for SIS Security and transporting "secret" Apple cargo. Apple neither confirmed nor denied that it owned the contents of the vehicle.
While the truck was presumably heading toward Apple Park or 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, the company keeps virtually all of its research projects under a shroud, even minor hardware updates. The company is known to be working on self-driving car technology, and is likely building an augmented reality headset.
AppleInsider's sources inside Apple not authorized to speak on behalf of the company believe that the vehicle was under Apple contract at the time, but refused comment on possible contents. We have learned that the company that employed the drivers, SIS Security, does the vast majority of Apple's land-based secure transport, ranging from the mundane like shredded document disposal, to prototype device transport. It does not appear that anything has been stolen from the mostly unladen but not empty vehicle, and no foul play is suspected.
Comments
We already have people attacking self-driving vehicles. What's going to happen when idiots start cutting off self-driving trucks just to see if they can cause an accident? The truck will either have to slam on its brakes which could result in a rear-end collision or it might swerve into another lane, which could also cause a serious accident.
The Teamsters Union has 1.4 million members. Do you really think they're not going to react when they start losing jobs to self-driving trucks?
And even though human-driven trucks get into plenty of accidents, including some incredibly stupid ones, like shearling off the top because they went through an overpass tunnel that was too low for the truck, there will be far more emotion associated with accidents caused by self-driving vehicles. As soon as there are more than a few deaths, politicians will start pushing for bans in local areas because it's an issue that's easy to understand and is very populist. I can see the demonstrators now: "No Self-Driving Trucks Around Our Kids!" regardless of whether self-driving trucks have better accident records than human-driven trucks.
And as far as this driver was concerned, if he fell asleep at 3am while driving, I don't care what's in his log book, he obviously didn't get enough rest.
/s
If the only thing that happens from the arrival of self-driving trucks is to piss off the Teamsters, then that's already a good enough reason.
There are numerous benefits to self-driving vehicles (trucks being one of them). Fewer accidents (bringing fewer injuries/deaths), reduced emissions/pollution, reduced shipping costs for all the companies that need to move goods and reduced highway congestion.
Put people out of work? I heard this doom & gloom story way back when personal computers just started coming out. Suddenly accountants and other office staff were going to be out of work and there would be massive unemployment when they were replaced by computers. How did that turn out? While there's no doubt some jobs were lost, how many millions of new jobs exist because of the PC industry? Before the personal computer there was always some other piece of technology or equipment that was going to cause massive unemployment by automating tasks that once required a human to do. I don't see this as any different. Some jobs will be lost and other new ones will be created. I can't stand when people use the threat of massive job loss to try and prevent new technology from being adopted.
I get that it's a tough thing to hear if you work in those fields. Heck, I already see that some of the tasks I do in my daily job have been automated. One day all of them might be automated and I'll have to figure out what else I can do. Hopefully that doesn't happen before I retire/stop working, but there's no guarantee of anything in life.
And now I'm going to argue the opposite side of the coin. My father was a manual labourer who worked in road construction and lived through a period where there were literally no rights for people in that line of work. For example, you'd travel out to the middle of nowhere to work, but if it happened to rain for a week and you weren't able to do the job guess what... you didn't get paid (but yet you were stuck out there with living expenses). Eventually a labour union was formed and they negotiated that road construction companies must pay living expenses for employees who need to travel for work.
Despite all of the propaganda to the contrary, there are reasons why labour unions exist for certain lines of work (even if the management at the head of some unions has become self-serving). But It's certainly not to prevent change from happening in the job market. It's to ensure that, when a job is required, the person who performs that job is compensated fairly and has rights. For jobs which require a higher level of skill/training (demand is higher than supply), you typically don't need a union because the worker has enough bargaining power to ensure this. But for jobs which don't (supply is higher than demand), that's where exploitative situations can arise (and have throughout human history).
The world will not remain idle. There are close to 200 countries, so any one, even the United States, will not hold back the eventual transition to SD vehicles. Better to lead than to be left behind. And the transition will be gradual, like the proverbial boiling frog. All those 1.4 million US truckers will not be out of work all at once. Early on, some will find their careers bolstered by being selected as in-truck pilots, monitoring the functioning of the SD truck and standing by to take control. They may each travel a single shift with a truck, then sleep and take another truck in the opposite direction, so their job will take them away from home for shorter periods. The truck itself will continue on down the road, 24/7, picking up a new pilot at the end of the last pilot’s shift. It’ll be a long time before the roads are exclusively travelled by SD vehicles, time perhaps for a generatIon of truckers to retire while the next generation finds work in other fields or in augmented roles within the trucking sector.
How will the horses earn their feed?
One example with which I'm personally familiar is live broadcasting. As recently as five years ago, the technical side of putting a local newscast on the air required six to ten people. Developments in broadcast automation have reduced that number to one, and that one now handles shows for multiple cities. Ignore for now how one person being responsible for the same number of tasks that used to have the attention of ten brains results in exponentially greater workplace stress, increased errors, and diminished quality. Consider only that the change results in a LOT of bodies flooding the market.
When an industry mass-dumps personnel, there's a glut of people vying for positions in related fields. Those related fields are also applying their own workforce reduction strategies, further compounding the problem. It's easy to say "Just retrain for a new career," but it ignores practical realities. Going back to school when you already have a family, mortgage, and car payments isn't a viable option. And retrain for what? Where are the growth industries for employment?
We're rapidly approaching, or may have already reached, a point at which society has more worker bees available than there are hives. What do we do with all the people we no longer need to keep the machinery running? We obviously aren't going to suppress technological advancement to protect the jobs it makes obsolete, but we better figure out how we're going to function as a society as we progress towards fewer and fewer people having a regular income.