you're not alone. in jacksonville, we talked to jeff widows, his son tanner, linda allen and eric richardson, all truckers, and all astonished to learn how far this technology has come. >> i wasn't aware until i ran across one on the florida turnpike. and that just -- that just scares me. i can't imagine. but i didn't know anything about it. >> no one is talking about it. >> nobody, never. >> i didn't know it had come so far. and i'm thinking wow, it's here. >> reporter: he is right. the autonomous truck revolution is here. it just isn't much discussed, not on cb radios and not in state houses. and transportation agencies are not inclined to pump the brakes. from florida, hang a left and drive 2,000 miles west on i-10, and you'll hit the proving grounds of a company with a fleet of 41 autonomous rigs. this is a shop floor or this is a laboratory? >> it's both. >> reporter: in the guts of the

sonoran desert outside tucson, chuck price is chief product officer at too simple, a privately held global autonomous trucking outfit valued at more than a billion dollars, with operations in the u.s. and china. at this depot, $12 million worth of gleaming self-driving semis are on the move. right now we've got safety operators in the cab. how far way are we from runs without drivers? >> we believe we'll be able to do our first driver out demonstration runs on public highways in 2021. >> reporter: that's the when. as for the how -- >> our primary sensor system is our array of cameras that you see along the top of the vehicle. >> reporter: i heard about suping up vehicles. >> it's a little bit different, yeah. >> reporter: the competition is fierce, so much so that the technology is akin to a state secret, but points us to a network of sensors, cameras and radar networks strapped to the outside of the rig, all of it

hard wired to an internal ai supercomputer that drives the truck. it's self-contain so a bad wifi signal won't wreak havoc on the road. >> our system can see farther than any other autonomous system in the world. we can see forward over a half mile. >> reporter: you can drive autonomously at night? >> we can. day, night and in the rain. and in the rain at night. >> reporter: and they're working on driving in the snow. chuck price has unshakeable confidence in the reliability of the technology, as do some of the biggest names in shipping. ups, amazon and the u.s. postal service ship freight with two simple trucks. all in, each unit costs more than a quarter million. not a great expense, considering it's designed to eliminate the annual salary of a driver, currently around $45,000. another savings, the driverless truck can get coast-to-coast in two day, not four, stopping only to refuel. though a human still has to do that.

we wanted to hop in and experience automated trucking firsthand. >> i feel like it's our turn on space mountain. >> reporter: chuck price was happy to oblige. we didn't know what to expect. so we fashioned more cameras to the rig than nasa glued to the apollo rockets. >> everybody buckle in? >> buckled in. >> all right. three, two, one. >> reporter: and we hit go. >> autonomous driving started. >> reporter: we sat in the back alongside the computer. in the front seat -- >> turn signal is on. >> reporter: maureen fitzgerald, a trucker's trucker with 30 yars' experience. she was our safety driver, baby-sitting with no intention of gripping the wheel, but there just in case. riding shotgun an engineer, john pantella, there to monitor the software. the driverless truck was attempting a 65 mile loop in weekday traffic through tucson. the map was routed and mapped in

before the run, but that's about it. the rest was up to the computer, which makes 20 decisions per second about what to do on the road. as we rolled past distracted drivers, disabled cars, slowpokes and sheriffs, our safety driver kept vigil but never disengaged the driverless system. >> watching the front targets close in. yep, got to cut in right now. 55 miles per hour bad cutoff. this guy just flagrantly cut us off. >> he really cut us off. we did not honk at him. did we disengage? >> we did not disengage. this vehicle will detect that kind of behavior faster than the humans. >> reporter: how far away are we able to pick up the faster cars passing us? >> that's joe from new jersey. we can read license plates. if there was an accessible database, we could. >> reporter: chuck price says that could be valuable to the company though he admits it

would create obvious privacy issues. it does collect a lot of data as it maps more and more routes across the southwest. their enterprise also includes a fleet of autonomous trucks in shanghai as well as a research center in beijing. the data collected by every truck along every mile is uploaded and used by too simple, they say only to perfect performance on the road. maureen fitzgerald is convinced that too simple technology is 350u7 superior to human drivers. you call these trucks your babies. >> right. >> reporter: what do they do well and what do they do better? thinking truck is scanning mirrors is looking at 2,000 meters out. it's processing things that my brain could never do and it can react 15 times faster than i could. reporter: most of her t million fellow truckers are less than enthusiastic. automated trucking threatens to jackknife an $800 billion industry. >> we'll have the rest of jon wertheim's report on

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driverless truck, it cuts deep. as truckers like to say, if you bought it, a truck brought it. >> reporter: steve a sociologist at the university of pennsylvania and an expert in freight transportation and automation. he also spent six months driving a big rig. what segment do you think is going to be hit first by driverless trucks? >> i've identified two segments that i think are most at risk, and that's refrigerated and drive van truckload. those cute about 200,000 trucking jobs. and these what's called line haul, and they're somewhere in the neighborhood of 80,000 to 90,000 jobs there. >> reporter: you're talking 300,000 jobs off the top. that's a big number. >> it is a big number. >> reporter: the florida truckers we met represent 70 years eerlion safe driving miles. >> how you doing, gerald? >> reporter: they say they love the job, and when asked to describe their work, they kick around words like vital, honest, and patriotic. >> it makes you feel like you can just poke your chest out

with the responsibility that you're taking on. kind of makes you feel like -- like you're needed. >> reporter: asked about driverless truck, they feel like they're being run off the road. but another issue troubles them even more. >> i think that companies need to keep safety in mind. >> you have a glitch in a computer at that speed, you can do some damage. >> yeah, there are too many things that can go wrong. >> one of them semis hit something that is small like a car, passing car or anything like that, it's a done deal. >> i was on 75 last month and there was a bad accident. a state trooper came out and he was hand signaling people, you go here, you go here. how is an autonomous truck going to recognize what the officer is going to stay? >> sympathy, empathy, fear, code, eye contact, i don't know how you create an algorithm that accounts for all that. >> you can't. >> reporter: does the public have the right to know if they're testing driverless trucks on the interstate? >> absolutely. >> that's our concern is who is

watching this? who is making sure they're not throwing something unsafe on the road? >> i think a lot of it is being done with almost no oversight from good governance groups from the government itself. >> reporter: sam lesch represents 600 thousand truckers for the teamsters. he is concerned that federal, state and local governments have only limited access to the driverless technology. >> a lot of this information understandably is proprietary. tech companies want to keep their algorithms and their safety data secret until they can kind of get it right. the problem is that in the meantime, they're testing this technology on public roads. they're testing next to you as you drive down the road. >> reporter: and that was consistent with our reporting. do you have to tell anyone when you test? >> no, not for individual tests. you t toell them where have you test. we do not currently have to tell them where we test in arizona. >> reporter: how often you test? >> no. >> reporter: do you have to share your data with any state department of transportation? >> currently we're not required to share data. we would be happy to share data.

>> reporter: what about inspections? is anyone from the arizona d.o.t. come by and check this stuff out? >> the d.o.t. comes by all the time. we talk with them regularly. it's not a formal inspection process yet. >> reporter: we wanted to ask elaine chao, secretary of the department of transportation about regulating this emerging sector. she declined an interview, but provided us with a statement, which reads in part, "the department needs to prepare for the transportation systems of the future by engaging with new technologies to address safety without hampering innovation." to that point, chuck price is emphatic that driverless trucks pose fewer dangers. >> we eliminate texting accidents. >> reporter: no texting while driving when there is a computer. there are no drunk computers and the computer doesn't sleep. so those are large causes of accidents. >> reporter: he adds that driverless trucks are more fuel efficient, in part because they can stay perfectly aligned in their lane. and unlike humans, are

programmed never to speed. but he a its the

millions of new england patriots fans are singing the blues this morning after long-time quarterback tom brady announced on twitter that he'll be leaving the team. dana jacobsen has his story. >> here from the crossroads of the world i can tell you that brady is at a crossroads in his career. there is no imminent announcement planned right now, but we do know that tampa bay, according to multiple sources, is where brady will try to recreate the magic he made in new england. >> i mean, we'll never see this run again, jim. >> brady's pass is intercepted and returned for a touchdown. >> reporter: unexpected at the time, this was tom brady's final play in new england, an interception returned for a touchdown following two decades of glory in the nfl. >> you know, there is nobody who has had a better career i would

say than me. >> we're going back, baby! >> reporter: that career leads like a fairy tale. brady came into the league in 2000 as a relatively unknown quarterback, just happy to compete for a spot on the patriots. >> pretty good work ethic. so i think i can get the job done. >> reporter: but that work ethic put brady on a path to super stardom. he set more than 50 nfl records with the patriot, including six championships and 249 wins. the most by any player. in january 2012, patriots owner robert kraft reminisced about his first meeting with brady. >> he said hi, mr. kraft, i'm tom brady. i said i know who you are. you're our sixth round draft choice from michigan. and he looked me in the eye and said and i'm the best decision this organization has ever made. you know what? he was right. >> reporter: now 42 years old, the superstar quarterback will spend the twilight of his career in a new city, something brady

hinted at after his play-off loss. >> i love playing for this team. again, i don't know what it looks like moving forward. so we'll just take it day by day. >> repter: in bred's on letter to fans tuesday, he wre, quote, he will always love you and what we have shared, a lifetime full of fun memories. >> i'm surprised to be honest with you. i thought he was going back. >> reporter: cbs sports nfl analyst says while brady has nothing to prove, his drive to be the best outside new england will push him. >> he's a competitor. you see him on the field. he is fiery. he is feisty. he wants to show everybody that he can win one without bill belichick. >> reporter: brady's expected deal with tampa bayeportedly in the $30 million range. now tampa bay does not play the patriots this year, but i should point out the super bowl is in tampa, and no host city has ever had its home team play in that title game. >> and that is the "overnight news" for this morning. for some of you, the news continues. for others, check back with us a little later for morning news

and of course "cbs this morning." from the broadca it is wednesday, march 19th, 2020. this is the "cbs morning news." i'm jeff pegues in washington in for anne-marie green. this morning, the white house is racing to combat the coronavirus pandemic. infections in the u.s. have swelled to more than 8,000. the first known members of congress have tested positive. representative mario diaz balart and representative adams of utah. the death toll is 146. those numbers are expected to climb. members of the white house task force are warning infection numbers will soon skyrocket. >> it's now in a high-speed platform. we will see the number of people