Someone still has to unload the package and bring it to the doorstep. Packages are not of uniform size. It's much more likely that long-haul, with depots at both ends where robots and humans can load the trucks efficiently and completely unload them at the destination, will allow for an autonomous navigation due to a lack of needing humans in between. A route with numerous stops will be much harder to automate without adding a whole bunch of equipment to the trucks.

Trains are great for large volumes to dedicated yards where the terrain allows the train to pass. Unfortunately there are lots of towns and cities where railroad access is poor or nonexistent. There are also deliveries of perishable goods from regional distribution centers to retail locations, like grocery stores, where they cannot afford the time to load, move through the 'backbone' of the rail system, to then unload at the next railyard, to then be loaded on to a truck for final distribution.

I can use my own commute as an analog; I drive around ten miles to work, going a half-mile east to the freeway, going a mile and a half north on that freeway to another one, about five miles east, then about three miles north. It takes about fifteen minutes if I hit all of the lights red. If I were to take mass transit I would have to wait for a bus to go half a mile WEST, then go north about six miles by bus, then take another bus east that goes the six or so miles but makes a detour to a senior center and sits for fifteen minutes, then walk a quarter mile up to the business. it would take me well over an hour even if I hit all of the connections perfectly. It makes more sense to drive.

Who owns the trailers and the merchandise? It's usually not the owner of the tractor.

Who pays the trucker? The owner of the merchandise or the trailer.

Don't forget, lots and lots of large retailers maintain their own over-the-road fleet. Sears/Kmart, Walmart, Target, Costco, Kroger, Safeway, Autozone, and that's only a drop in the bucket. They could all retrofit to an automated tractor, or at least where a pilot car or truck escorts a caravan of autonomous trucks following behind.

There's always a degree of responsibility and liability if one owns something. I own a ladder. If someone uses that ladder at my house with my permission and the ladder breaks and injures them, even if it has not been abused, my homeowners' insurance policy is probably going to end up having to pick up the tab.

I fully expect that insurance for completely autonomous cars will be less expensive, once self-driving cars are proven. To prove them, I expect large fleets sponsored by the manufacturer or systems integrator will drive many thousands of hours per-car to establish a baseline, similarly to how an MTBF is established for devices, and that rate of collision or other liability-causing event will factor into the insurance companies' rates for those cars.

For autonomous cars that are capable of being human-driven, my guess is that insurance will be based on a percentage of on-road driving done by the computer versus on-road driving done by a human, and then the class or category that human falls into would apply for that ratio.

The trucking industry would absolutely love to do away with hundreds of thousands of long-haul drivers. The mass-transit industry, which is often contracted by the municipality to private companies, would also love to do away with bus drivers and other high occupancy drivers where they could be deemed not necessary. On top of that, removing the payroll for drivers could allow bus companies to start employing private security on bus routes where assault or vandalism is a problem without increasing their payrolls to do so.

Even low occupancy transit like taxis will do away with drivers- it will remove the human element as a risk to the passenger and will mean that the cab companies make more money as they're not simply renting cabs to drivers for a flat rate, they're collecting all of the revenue for the cab's use, and they only have to operate as many cabs as they have service demands for at any given moment, so there's less unnecessary wear and tear on the cars as drivers aren't speculatively taking cabs out.

Sure, there will be plenty of human drivers out there, but there's going to be a whole lot of automation because it will simply be much more cost-effective in many circumstances.

Give it a few days. I expect we'll see that rule appear shortly. Given the ability to lock the cockpit door from inside I'm a little surprised that the rule didn't already exist.

I don't have a map of them in front of me, but I'm fairly sure that it crosses plate boundaries. That might be a little difficult to achieve in an in-ground tunnel, and I can't deny that the thought of a suspended-in-water tunnel is a bit nerve-wracking given the possibility of maritime accidents...

Can you add the Google module to the Trabi or the Lada?

I thought it was actually eau de toilette...

That's just it though, it's not more secure as Internet-connectivity now provides another vector of attack, and given the interoperability problems it's not really more convenient either, especially when one spends more time servicing the automation system than one would have spent doing things the old-fashioned way.

That makes it solely an aspect of a hobby, and that's great because hobbies add some entertainment to one's life, but don't pretend that it's making the world a better place.

I check my receipt myself, and I watch the register closely as my items are being rung-up. It's part of caveat emptor. One cannot rely on the kindness of others in this regard.

Even without such signs, courts have interpreted trespassing as being a threat to the rightful owners or occupants of private property and allowed for homicide against a trespasser to go without-charge or for acquittal.

A bank as a form of retail establishment doesn't quite fit the definition as banks welcome everyone in to do business. It's private property but it's also a public space.

So you're saying that the key to successfully stealing from retail stores that place security at the door is to assertively do everything in the store including leaving it?

It depends on what you mean by sexual behavior, in some senses. Nearly everyone is driven by sexual desires. How and where we express these desires becomes the question. How amorous should a couple be in public? Holding hands? Occasionally kissing? Cuddling? Canoodling? Heavy petting?

Some of that is situation-dependent. I don't think that it's sexual-orientation-dependent though. If it's inappropriate for a homosexual couple to kiss or cuddle in a given public space or situation then it's probably inappropriate for a heterosexual couple to do the same in the same environment.

I was specifically taught that using they, them, and their was wrong when referring to a single individual because those are all plural pronouns. This was taught during the eighties and nineties for what it's worth. It was stressed that the only singular gender-neutral pronoun was one, but in practice I find that to be difficult to use.