There are many reasons why big-rigs need alert and attentive drivers at the controls at all times - the ability to respond to organic situations that require intelligent cone-placement is but one.
How many of these MBA's and marketing morons have been to driving school??
How many of the actual drivers themselves have been to driving school?
You know there's an ongoing joke about Swift drivers right? Because Swift, alongside all the other huge truck transportation companies are basically hiring drivers with fresh CDLs and paying them peanuts (LA to New York is only 2000 miles by the dispatcher mile). Of course, the rules say they need supervision, so for two weeks, they get paired up with someone who just finished their supervision period having been hired a couple of weeks earlier.
Trucking has lost its reputation because the huge trucking companies basically drove all the experienced drivers off the market with race to the bottom pricing and now the only ones that work for them are basically student drivers.
(Those experienced drivers meanwhile have discovered local trucking which lets them sleep in their own bed with their family every night and while they still get the same hassles at the loading dock, they're less dependent on miles driven and thus if the loading dock gives them problems, they can reschedule delivery).
The big trucking firms are also why automatic transmissions on semis are basically standard as they know those new drivers haven't quite got their shifting skills, so they buy automatic trucks en masse. The added cost is minimal compared to the savings in using newly minted drivers.
Makes me wonder why those companies aren't trying to eliminate the need for a driver per truck - between Swift and others an autonomous truck would be ideal for them to put the other trucking companies out of business.