Robot truck hits public roads for first time

Self-driving freight trucks have been given the go ahead to drive on Nevada's roads.

The vehicles, developed by German manufacturer Daimler AG, have clocked up 16,000 kilometres in order to get the key to the western state's roads -- and a full license. "This is not a testing licence," said chief executive Wolfgang Bernhard at a press conference on 5 May. "We believe that these vehicles and systems are ready." Daimler then proved its point by driving its new Freightliner Inspiration vehicles across the Hoover Dam. Two of the vehicles -- which use a long-range radar, short-range radar and a stereo camera to operate -- have been given a license to operate on Nevada's public roads.

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By comparison, Google X's own self-driving cars only took to public roads for testing earlier this year, with a spokesperson revealing in March that members of the public may be accepted as passengers in 2015.

While car accidents make up the vast majority of road traffic accidents in the UK, with 785 car passenger fatalities in the UK in 2013, lorries are increasingly hitting the headlines for the dangers they pose to cyclists and pedestrians in urban areas. A 2013 study commissioned by the Campaign for Better Transport even found the vehicles likely had a hand in the rising numbers of fatal traffic accidents on motorways and A-roads: 52 percent of fatal accidents on motorways involved HGVs, it said, despite them making up 10 percent of the traffic; and one in five fatal crashes on A-road involved the vehicles. The report also estimated that an HGV is five times as likely to be involved in a fatal accident on a minor road. According to a report by the International Transport Forum, released this year, global freight traffic will quadruple by 2050, so it's a good time to start investing in autonomous trucks.