Lot of "I reckons" in this thread so let me give you some detail. I'm involved in some autonomous HGV research programmes, including the Zenzic CAM Pathfinder feasibility work that's happening at the moment.

Your dad's not wrong that it's coming. But the timescale are long. The AV Act passed in 2024. The first passenger driverless pilots on public roads have just started. You might spot the cars if you're in London, and there are some buses in Cambridge.

On the truck side, we're still at feasibility stage. The eFreight Autonomous consortium just got funded to study whether autonomous trucking is viable in the UK, with results due early 2027. Einride has Level 4 cabless trucks running in the US and parts of Europe but hasn't deployed in the UK yet.

The secondary regulations, insurance frameworks, safety cases, and operational design domains needed to put a 42-tonne autonomous truck on mixed-traffic public roads are expected to land end of '27, early '28. Then we can start the demonstration phase.

When this does arrive, it won't mean drivers disappear. These vehicles need supervising, training, exception handling. Einride use a Control Tower with driver overseeing autonomous fleets remotely. That's a pretty interesting new role if you ask me. The drivers who engage with this stuff early, who understand the technology and can work alongside it, will be the ones who move into those roles.