Honestly though, that's win-win.

A heist where a human is involved has enhanced risk of injury or loss-of-life if the driver / guard decides to be a big hero or the criminal gets jumpy.

A world where vehicles are modestly easier to steal from (but audit the thefts) pushes risk from human lives towards insurance companies. Toss in a few honeypot shipments that are tailed by a handful of squad cars, and things are probably fine.

We don't have rampant highwayman theft because there are human drivers. We don't have it because most people don't want to do it.

It seems to me the heist risk is being overrated...

But if your logic is solid, the next solution would be for these self-driving trucks to carry a human or two who'll sit there and not do anything. So, literal human shields.

Like the joke about how to solve the self-driving car trolley problem to your benefit: make sure you're in a car with a few newborn babies.

I haven't heard that joke before and it's pretty good :)

But the human shields are still solving for the wrong problem: placing the value of a load of (usually) consumer goods over the value of a human life.

> Hijacking trucks (stealing trailers) is happening already with drivers and security guards. Remove the drivers and security guards and it will make it a lot easier.

I'm not sure taking away bribe-able workers with keys to the truck will make it easier to hijack.

Feel like we already have ways to reduce this, having a lone trucker doesn’t magically make it all safer, if anything it should make it much riskier as there is a human life on the line.

If robberies start happening, insurance will adjust. Maybe a security driver will tail multiple vehicles headed to the same destination. Worrying about these cases seems helpful, but the industry will resolve these as the savings and improvements seem to make it a simple equation. This is all assuming the tech works ofcourse