If I were younger and not married, I could totally see taking a job as a trucker and guiding it on and off the highway, and doing coding or whatever in the meantime. It'd be a chance to go different places and have some adventure, while continuing to do another job that I love.
It's not unlike many college kids taking a job as a security guard and "watching monitors" while doing their homework, etc. (Another thing that I considered, but never actually did.)
Of course, there's a lot more training for truck driving, but I don't see that as a major barrier, given the benefits of extra pay and travel.
I see the evolution of automated vehicles as slowly taking more and more mental load off humans. e.g
1) Automated gears and obstacle detection - we already have this.
2) Have the truck stay in one lane and maintain distance - We're close. This means humans stay in truck and solve the hard problems when encountered. (Kind of like pilots)
3) Automated port to port driving without humans.
4) Destination to destination driving without humans.
It's not unlike many college kids taking a job as a security guard and "watching monitors" while doing their homework, etc. (Another thing that I considered, but never actually did.)
Of course, there's a lot more training for truck driving, but I don't see that as a major barrier, given the benefits of extra pay and travel.