Why the ‘Driverless’ Narrative Is Failing the Freight Industry

27 January 2026

Toby Patrick

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To many people, the thought of stepping into a driverless vehicle or being surrounded by them would seem risky. Yet despite this, according to many, the future of freight is driverless. But if we are moving towards a driverless future, we’re doing so more slowly than was expected. Is this an us problem, or is it a technology problem?

Modern silver train on tracks in an urban area, with mountains in the background. Visible power lines and a sign in the foreground.

Fear Before Function

There’s a lot of talk about driverless technology, but the action doesn’t match the talk. If we were to go back to the start of the millennium, I think most opinion leaders would agree that we’d be surrounded by driverless cars, trains, trucks and planes. Even in today’s current state of affairs, driverless vehicles seem to make the news regularly, but how many businesses are actually using the technology? How many people have stepped into a driverless vehicle? The numbers are pretty low, and there still appears to be a massive gap between marketing and adoption.

The Skill Shortage

The industry also appears to be at somewhat of a crossroads. Fewer people are undergoing transport training out of fear of a driverless future, but driverless technology isn’t at the point where it can replace traditional transport.

Not only does this contribute towards a driver shortage, but it has also contributed to a skill shortage in terms of developing driverless tech. While some are wary of entering the industry as a driver, others are viewing it from the opposite side, hesitant to step into technology-based roles in case the industry doesn’t come into fruition.

This is leaving the industry with an all-around shortage, and it may explain why the vision of a driverless future hasn’t taken off. In short, the industry is in desperate need of a recruitment-driven rebrand that attracts skilled drivers, engineers and startups to help transition us from one era to the next.

The Reality

We often fall into the trap of assuming that automation and robotics replace human jobs. The reality is that advances in technology often create new jobs and opportunities. If we are to achieve a driverless future, we’ll still need humans for quality assurance, legislation, maintenance and decision making.

Who Can Actually Build ‘Driverless’?

To bring the vision of driverless freight to life, it will require a first mover to prove that the vision is actually achievable. Often, this responsibility falls to a billion-dollar company to fund the research & development, infrastructure and marketing. Until we reach that point, driverless freight is likely to be beyond the reach of small businesses, which ultimately delays driverless freight from becoming the new normal.

Signs of Progress

On the subject of driverless becoming the new normal, it is positive to see signs of progress. Visible progress includes the driverless cabs that are becoming increasingly normal in places like Las Vegas. Obviously, driverless freight comes with far more complexity, but it does at least stress that society’s confidence in driverless vehicles is on the up.

Final Thoughts

It doesn’t seem to be a question of if we will adopt driverless transport, but more a question of when. And we are certainly moving towards this, albeit slowly. With the likes of Tesla ploughing millions into driverless cars and driverless trains becoming increasingly common in some parts of the world, surely it’s only a matter of time until driverless freight becomes the new norm.

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Low waste living

ITK Magazine
Aug 12, 2024
3 min read

The health of our planet was a hot topic before Covid-19 came along and moved our priorities to the health of the entire human race.

Green Recycling Bin against a Red gradient background.

You can’t have missed those videos (or Attenborough’s TV shows) that show sea creatures getting caught up and sometimes killed from the plastic waste swimming about their ocean environments. Even on land, the impact of our plastic waste—whether this is an empty drinks bottle thrown carelessly into the countryside, or the huge mounds of plastic in landfills—can devastate fragile eco-systems and cause damage to living creatures as well as the environment. Plastic in rivers can cause them to become blocked and each item of plastic waste takes 400 years to degrade.

Disposable plastics is a relatively new phenomenon. Our parents’ and especially our grandparents’ generations used glass bottles for milk and pop, for example, which were returned to the manufacturer for reuse/refilling.

There are plenty of places today where you can buy milk, cream and orange juice in glass bottles, which are much easier to recycle than plastic. For coffee lovers, consider taking your own flask or refillable cup into coffee shops for your morning latte, and for those who like to have water with them throughout the day, buy a metal flask that can be continually refilled.

On a similar note, look at reducing the amount of plastic packaging you throw away. There are outlets that allow you to weigh out how much you need of a certain directly into your own containers. These ‘weigh your own’ shops offer cereals, grains, rice and other foodstuffs.

Blue handkerchief on a blue wooden background

Use a handkerchief

Anything disposable is a bad idea, even paper. When you’re suffering from the sniffles, take a pack of cloth handkerchiefs to work with you. Not only will these be less abrasive on your poor, sore nose, they can be washed in the washing machine to be used again.

If you know that you’re going to visit a fast-food joint, dampen a few handkerchiefs and pop them into a plastic food bag (which can be washed and reused each time). You can then wipe the kids’ faces and hands after they’ve finished as effectively as using a baby/hand wipe, but without damaging the environment. Disposable wipes take around 100 years to decompose.

Buy only the food you need

Food waste is a huge issue. The amount of food we throw away each year runs into many tonnes, yet we have people amongst us starving or suffering from malnutrition.

Adding food waste to our landfill is simply unnecessary, and its impact on the environment goes further than this. Because we’ve become accustomed to having every type of food available all year round, rather than eating food of the season that has been produced within the UK, we import a vast amount of food from other countries. The associated air miles and carbon footprint of this indulgence have a detrimental effect on the environment.

Menu planning is one way to cut down on food waste, because you’re more likely to just purchase the food you need. Resist two-for-one offers—particularly on fruit, vegetables and items with short use-by dates—if you’re unlikely to consume all the food before it passes its best.

Consider creating a compost heap in a spare corner of the garden. Egg shells, fruit and veg peelings, teabags and ground coffee beans all biodegrade to make a rich compost for your plants. Much better being put to use in your garden than adding to the mound of waste at your nearest landfill site.

Use natural cleaners

The various chemicals from all the different cleaning solutions on the market eventually go back into our water supply, which needs more treating to become drinkable again.

There are numerous ‘recipes’ online for cleaning solutions that can be made from natural ingredients, such as distilled vinegar, bicarbonate of soda, lavender, lemon and salt. Such elements are not pollutants and don’t contaminate our water like most artificial chemicals.

These are simple actions that can help you do your bit for the environment. If we all practised them, we could, perhaps, slow the damage to our planet