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Glasgow Times
15-06-2025
- Glasgow Times
Couple spend £40k travelling down the world's longest road
Matt Saunders, 28, and his girlfriend, Rachel Kelly, 26, took a break from their jobs to travel down the Pan American Highway - with a budget of £40k. On June 4, 2024, the pair set off from the UK to Canmore, Canada, where they spent £15k purchasing a Dodge Ram - a pick-up truck- a camper for the back, and spent money getting it roadworthy. They then made their way to Alaska and set off down the Pan American Highway, visiting 16 countries on the way - including Guatemala, Peru and Bolivia. Matt admits that it has not been smooth sailing; the couple nearly died in the Peruvian Andes after their truck nearly fell off a road with a 1000ft drop due to the road conditions. The couple are travelling down the Pan American Highway. (Image: SWNS) The couple are currently at the Galapagos Islands before heading back to the UK. Matt, a quantity surveyor from Clapham, London, said: "The freedom that this trip has given us is insane. "We spent 11 months visiting some of the best countries in the world. "It has been daunting, but this lifestyle has given us so much freedom. "The freedom of living in the van, being able to be where you want each day, waking up with a different view. "When you backpack and fly everywhere, you end up missing so much, whereas the drive gives you that adventure and excitement that nothing else can." In 2018, Matt got his first taste of adventure when he drove from London to Mongolia in a 1-litre Suzuki Alto. The pair have a budget of £40,000. (Image: SWNS) When he returned to the UK, he met Rachel on Tinder in 2020, who had told him she wanted to travel, so the pair got planning this trip down the Pan American Highway. Matt said: "Seven years ago I drove from London to Mongolia in a little crappy car that your grandma would drive. "After doing that, I got the sense of adventure. "When I first met Rachel, she said that she wanted to go travelling. "I told her to wait a couple of years as I had a plan to explore America by car, and she was on board." The couple managed to save £40k from their salaries and set off from the UK and headed to Canmore, Canada, to visit Matt's brother on June 4, 2024. While in Canada, the couple spent £15k buying a 1997 Dodge Ram and a camper for the back. The pair started their trip in June 2024. (Image: SWNS) But, a few days into their journey, the roof on their camper collapsed and the truck's transmission blew up, leaving them needing to spend £10k to get it fixed. Matt said, "Day three into our journey to the Arctic, our camper broke and we had to live with it like that for six weeks. "When we got to Washington State, a mechanic said it was unfixable, so we had to shell out another £5k to buy a new one, which was half of our budget gone." Matt and Rachel, a salesperson, set off from Alaska down to Pan American Highway - the longest road in the world - on June 24, 2024. They drove 40k miles through 16 countries in 11 months before they finished in Ushuaia, Argentina Matt said some of the highlights from the trip have been the countries they visited, including the USA, Chile and Argentina. The trip hasn't always been easy for the pair. (Image: SWNS) He said: "We loved visiting the American National Parks with their remoteness and wildlife. "The culture in Central America was really cool, they had some great beaches. "Patagonia has some incredible wildlife, which was amazing. "We spent 11 months on the road going to some of the best countries you can visit." Matt said some of the biggest challenges they have faced have been the breakdowns. The truck was set on fire twice, the wheel fell off in rural Patagonia, and the couple nearly died in the Peruvian Andes after their truck nearly fell off a road with a 1000ft drop. Matt said: "We have had our fair share of breakdowns, we had two fires in the camper, which was scary. "We nearly died in the Peruvian Andes with our car nearly sliding off a 1000ft drop on muddy roads. "It was a dangerous road, and intense rain basically made it impassable, but we couldn't turn around. "Last week the wheel fell off the truck in rural Patagonia and had no spare. "We were stuck for three days figuring out what to do." After completing their Pan American Journey in Ushuaia, Argentina, they sold their 1997 Dodge for £5k to a follower in Uruguay and headed to Brazil on foot before arriving in the Galapagos Islands. Recommended Reading The couple plan to head back to the UK in the summer, but said they are "daunted" by the thought of returning. Matt said: "We are spending a few days Galapagos Islands before returning to the UK in a few weeks. "We are daunted by the feeling of returning to the UK, but we are excited to see our family and friends. "I will be returning to work, and Rachel is still figuring out what to do."
New York Times
27-05-2025
- Automotive
- New York Times
Yes, That 18-Wheeler on a Texas Highway Is Driving Itself
The semi truck rumbled down the congested, five-lane Texas highway, letting a small sedan pass on its right, then accelerating past another semi on its left. In the back seat of the truck's sun-drenched cabin, a middle-aged man watched YouTube videos on his phone. Behind him, a 53-foot refrigerated trailer carried nearly 25,000 pounds of pastries. Nobody was in the driver's seat. Last month, Aurora Innovation, based in Pittsburgh, became the first company to operate a driverless 18-wheeler on an American highway, ushering in an era that could dramatically change how cargo moves across the United States. Autonomous trucks, proponents say, could solve a knot of problems facing the American shipping industry, which has struggled to recruit drivers for grueling, low-paying long-haul shifts, and which expects major growth in cargo shipment activity in the coming decades, driven by the overwhelming popularity of online shopping. These new trucks won't need sleep, they won't speed, and they won't get road rage. They won't ride the brakes or make unnecessary lane changes, wasting fuel. And they won't need to abide by the 11-hour daily driving maximum imposed on long-haul truckers for safety reasons. 'If you're a farm that has fresh produce, the reach of your farm just expanded dramatically,' said Chris Urmson, the chief executive of Aurora, who was riding in the back seat during the first run. Aurora's new truck, which has already logged more than 1,000 driverless miles shuttling goods along Interstate 45 in Texas, is equipped with nearly 360-degree sensors that can detect objects 1,000 feet away. But some truckers, academics and labor groups are uneasy. They see an unregulated and risky sphere emerging, and worry that American roads could be facing a new menace. Byron Bloch, an auto safety expert in Maryland, said that federal oversight of the new robotrucks was 'totally inadequate' and that the technology was being rushed into use with 'alarming' speed. 'My initial thought is: It's scary,' said Angela Griffin, a veteran truck driver from outside Hagerstown, Md. She said misting rain had caused A.I.-powered scanners on her semi truck to malfunction, and she worried that unpredictable traffic patterns in congested areas or challenging weather conditions could lead to catastrophic errors by unmanned trucks. Ms. Griffin recalled a particularly difficult episode: Driving down a rain-soaked Interstate 95 in Fredericksburg, Va., early one morning, signs directed her that the right two lanes would be blocked off because of construction. Following the signage, she moved her semi to the far left lane, but when she went around a bend, she discovered the sign was wrong: two construction trucks were parked in the left lane, she said. There was a semi on her right. Workers were in between the trucks, and there was no left shoulder. She slammed on the brakes and yelled. Her truck pulled up just in time. 'I thought for sure I was going to kill those people,' she said. 'I don't see how a driverless truck would have been able to read and recognize the threat that was imminent.' And Ms. Griffin wondered if the lack of a driver might slow the response time if an autonomous truck runs over a pedestrian, or freezes in the road and gets rear-ended. (Mr. Urmson, the Aurora chief, declined to say how many people in a remote assistance center would be assigned to each robotruck.) Semi trucks, the skeptics note, bring dangers different from those posed by the self-driving cars that have started to take over the streets of San Francisco, Phoenix, Austin and Las Vegas. The trucks are far heavier, and need at least a football field's length to come to a complete stop at highway speeds. Some carry flammable or hazardous materials. The rollout of robocars has itself been bumpy. In Arizona in 2018, a driverless car ran over a pedestrian walking a bicycle, killing her. In San Francisco and Austin, the vehicles have slowed emergency response times and caused accidents. With larger vehicles, the critics say, the dangers multiply. The risks seemed to crystallize on an Arizona highway in 2022, when an autonomous truck with a driver aboard veered across Route 10 and careened into a concrete barrier. (Nobody was hurt.) 'It's potentially disastrous from a safety perspective,' said John Samuelsen, head of the Transport Workers Union of America, who is also worried about trucking jobs being automated out of existence. Mr. Samuelsen appears to have public opinion on his side. A survey conducted by AAA this year found that 61 percent of motorists in the United States feared self-driving vehicles and that 26 percent were unsure about them. Mr. Urmson, the Aurora chief, vowed that his trucks would be safe. 'We have something like 2.7 million tests that we run the system through,' he said. And he said they would not displace truckers, citing growing demand and an aging work force. 'It is a noble job,' he said of trucking. 'That said, people don't particularly want to do it anymore.' The safety concerns are not universal among truckers. Gary Buchs of Colfax, Ill., who has been driving big rigs since the 1980s, said he expected driverless trucks would be safer and more predictable. He doubted they would eradicate trucking jobs. 'I think the growth of jobs will outpace the addition of autonomous trucks,' Mr. Buchs said, predicting that for any lost long-haul trucking jobs, there would be new, higher-quality careers for shorter deliveries. 'Younger people want the jobs changed.' Just about everybody agrees on one thing. The robotrucks are coming, fast. 'Like a freaking Corvette — doing zero to 60,' Mr. Samuelsen said. The consulting firm McKinsey & Company has projected that 13 percent of the heavy-duty trucks on U.S. roads will drive themselves within a decade. For now, Aurora, whose investors include Uber, has operated just two trucks without a driver — only in good weather and during the day. And last week, Aurora said it was temporarily returning an observer to the driver's seat at the request of the truck's manufacturer. But Aurora says it plans to expand its driverless runs to at least 20 trucks by year's end, and to push into more challenging conditions. The company is fine-tuning the technology for bad weather, and said its robotruck would drive conservatively in the rain and use blasts of high-pressure air to clean the lenses of its sensors. Runs in the snow appear more distant. (Mr. Urmson previously ran Google's self-driving car project, now known as Waymo, which has had successes in San Francisco and other cities.) At least three other companies are also developing driverless trucks. One of the companies, Kodiak Robotics, has started to use driverless trucks on dirt roads in Texas. Experts spoke highly of Aurora, describing the company as a leader in safety. But they also expressed concern about a lack of regulation. 'What Aurora's doing is being much more careful than most,' said Philip Koopman, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who specializes in autonomous vehicles. 'But there's still no requirement for independent checks and balances.' The Transportation Department, which regulates commercial trucking through its Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said in a statement that 'comprehensive federal regulations specific to automated trucks are still under development.' But the department added that it was working with the trucking industry and state governments to 'modernize safety oversight.' Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican, said in a statement that he welcomed the arrival of Aurora's trucks and that his state 'offers businesses the freedom to succeed.' Although there is no federal regulatory framework in place, a number of states have considered legislation to regulate self-driving trucks. Under normal circumstances, experts said, robotrucks may prove much better at driving than humans. 'For our ordinary set of traffic crashes, automated trucking will be safer,' predicted Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who focuses on driverless vehicles, citing existing research on vehicle automation. But experts caution that it is impossible to predict how the trucks will react to circumstances their designers did not anticipate: a storm of tumbleweeds, perhaps, or a broad cyberattack that affects their systems. 'This technology is really good at things it's practiced, and really bad at things it has never seen before,' Professor Koopman said, adding, 'From a safety point of view, nobody knows how it's going to turn out.'
