Driverless Trucks Still Need a Roadside Safety Process
PrePass and Kodiak AI announced a collaboration to connect inspection information from autonomous trucks with roadside screening systems. The first implementation is in Texas and Louisiana. According to the companies, trained inspectors will perform an enhanced inspection before driverless operation begins, and enforcement personnel can then review that information and decide whether a vehicle may bypass a roadside inspection site.
The announcement is notable for what it reveals about the current state of autonomous trucking: even the companies developing driverless freight technology recognize that safety oversight cannot simply be removed from the equation. The question is how that oversight gets redesigned when there is no driver in the cab.
What the PrePass-Kodiak Collaboration Actually Does
PrePass is a weigh-station bypass and safety screening service that is already used by millions of commercial vehicles. When a truck equipped with a PrePass transponder approaches a weigh station, the system checks the carrier's safety record, weight data, and other information in real time. If the truck passes the screening, it receives a green light to bypass the station without stopping. If it does not pass, it receives a red light and must pull in for inspection.
Kodiak AI is developing autonomous trucking technology — systems that allow a tractor-trailer to operate without a human driver in the cab. The company has been running driverless freight operations in Texas and is expanding its operational footprint.
The collaboration between the two companies is designed to address a specific problem: how does a roadside enforcement officer interact with a truck that has no driver to hand over documents, answer questions, or respond to instructions?
The announced solution involves a pre-operation enhanced inspection — a thorough check of the vehicle before it begins a driverless trip. The results of that inspection are then made available to enforcement personnel through the PrePass system. When the autonomous truck approaches a weigh station, the officer can review the inspection data and decide whether the vehicle needs to stop or can continue.
The Detail Worth Watching: Human Decision Around the Technology
The most important aspect of this announcement is not the technology itself. It is the explicit acknowledgment that human decision-making remains in the loop.
Sending inspection data electronically does not mean a truck has a blanket exemption from safety oversight. It means agencies need a dependable way to see whether the required checks were completed and issue instructions when necessary. The PrePass-Kodiak system, as described, preserves the enforcement officer's authority to require a stop. The technology provides information; the human makes the decision.
This is a meaningful design choice. An alternative approach — one that simply allowed autonomous trucks to bypass all roadside inspection based on pre-trip data alone — would raise serious safety and accountability questions. The announced system attempts to maintain the substance of safety oversight while adapting the process to a vehicle without a driver.
Whether it succeeds in that goal is an empirical question that will be answered by how the system performs in actual operation, not by a press announcement.
Questions Drivers Have a Right to Ask
The trucking community has a legitimate interest in how autonomous vehicles are regulated and how they interact with the safety systems that apply to every other commercial vehicle on the road. Here are the questions that deserve clear answers as this technology expands.
Who responds if the system fails on a trip? A human driver can pull over, call for help, and communicate with enforcement officers. An autonomous truck that experiences a mechanical failure, a software error, or an unexpected road condition needs a response protocol. Who is responsible for that response? How quickly can a human operator intervene? What happens if the remote monitoring system loses contact with the vehicle? How will inspections work across state lines? The PrePass-Kodiak collaboration is currently implemented in Texas and Louisiana. Commercial trucking is an interstate activity. A driverless truck that operates across multiple states needs a consistent safety framework that works in every jurisdiction it enters. The patchwork of state-level autonomous vehicle regulations creates real complexity for a system that depends on consistent enforcement protocols. What information is visible to officers, and how quickly can a vehicle be pulled aside when something changes? A pre-trip inspection captures the condition of the vehicle at the start of a trip. Conditions change during a trip — a tire can develop a problem, a light can fail, cargo can shift. The pre-trip data does not reflect the vehicle's condition at the moment it approaches a weigh station. How does the system account for in-trip changes? What happens when the technology and the human judgment disagree? If the pre-trip inspection data suggests the vehicle is compliant but an enforcement officer observes something that raises a concern, who prevails? The answer should be the human officer — but the system needs to be designed to make that authority clear and unambiguous.What This Means for Professional Drivers
Autonomous trucking technology is advancing, and it will continue to advance. The question for professional drivers is not whether the technology will exist — it will — but how it will be integrated into the freight system and what role human drivers will play alongside it.
The PrePass-Kodiak announcement is a small but meaningful data point. It suggests that the companies developing autonomous trucking technology understand that safety oversight cannot simply be eliminated. It also suggests that the regulatory and enforcement infrastructure for driverless trucks is still being built, one collaboration at a time.
Professional drivers have expertise that matters in this conversation. They know what roadside inspections actually involve, what enforcement officers look for, and what kinds of problems a pre-trip inspection might miss. That expertise should be part of the policy discussion as autonomous trucking regulations develop.
GladHands Pro will follow how this technology works in actual freight operations and how it affects the professional drivers sharing those roads. If you have experience with autonomous trucks in your lanes — as a driver sharing the road with them, or as someone working in a fleet that is evaluating the technology — share your perspective in the community.
Source: PrePass and Kodiak AI's September 21 announcement of their roadside inspection collaboration.