THer week, the UK government announced its plans to quickly track vehicle trials with no UK tracking. One of the main companies involved London provides an important challenge: “It has Seven times more jaywalkers than San Francisco. “There is more than a problem with that statement – and it shrugs most of what is wrong with adopting driverless cars.
For a beginning, “Jaywalking” is not even an item in the UK. We are grateful without concept or offense. Unlike many US cities, pedestrians here are free to cross the road wherever they can see fit. And thank you so much.
The term “Jaywalker” was invented in the 1920s of the US Motor Industry, and revealed it regarding pedestrian character. “Jay” is a term mocking time, means bumpkin or idiot. The term “Jaywalker” intentionally intended to stop people walking in the streets and it’s about a wider campaign from cars and drivers themselves.
In time, streets are shared with spaces. Pedestrians, cyclists, children playing, street vendors and public transport are all united on the road. The car, when it comes to it, breaks that balance, often violent. Faced with growing public anger in the dangers imposed by car drivers, the motor industry is fighting too. By lobbying, media manipulation and pressure legislators, successfully refrorned public road as a space mainly for motor vehicles.
The campaign was very successful that Jaywalking became a criminal offense in many cities. And generally, it is now. Jaywalking laws are shown uncontrollably affecting communities specified. Data collected under California Rasa and Profiling Active recognition Revealed that black people stopped 4.5 times often for jaywalking than white people.
We still live with cultural consequences made by a system designed to remove pedestrians. And so, when the CEO of a tech company built cars driving cars using the word “jaywalker” as a barrier to overcome, worthy attention. It suggests that pedestrians are still a problem controlled, predicted or designed. That man’s behavior, instead of dangerous cars, a bug we need to heal. Unlike human drivers, AVS has developed rigid rules, structural surroundings and conceivable behavior. Forever of human action is challenging and a threat to adopt AV. So “Jaywalkers” are flagged as a challenge of surgery, because autonomous systems do not easily deal with real people doing ordinary things. The risk is rather than adapting people’s cars, we will also change the streets to suit the machines.
I’m not anti-technology. I welcome the opportunity to use an autonomous vehicle for long journeys in which public transport is not an option. I also see driving, straightforward, somewhat fun and tiring. Done correctly, self-driving cars can provide a safe, low carbon alternative to car ownership. But if they have developed in a way that respects people and cities instead of trying to submit two to meet the technology limits.
True disaster is that we repeat history. Rolling cars without driverless should not be an excuse to improve pedestrian role in city life. The streets of the 20th century are reshaped to suit the vehicles, often in large social costs. Communities across the community were disrupted. Children have lost the ability to rour. People stopped walking. The air pollution is hidden. Lost a community feeling. The deaths on the road, especially in the weakest, become normal. Today, many of our streets remain enemy, noise and danger.
If we want technology without driver to succeed it should be done to serve in society, not the other way around. That means acknowledgment that the non -Redactive is not a system bug, but about making the town towns. And it means resistance to any attempt at the basic person’s basic behavior, such as crossing the road, as a problem that requires restraint.
While a Jaywalking law in the UK is optimistic, there is nothing to prevent the slowly prohibition of pedestrian activity by street design. Then, there is a lot of money to do before taking awtonomic cars, so it’s tempting for companies that try to deal with any way they face.
According to the government, autonomous vehicles can make 38,000 jobs and contribute £ 42bn in UK Economy at 2035. That is not important. But if they do this by strengthening a world where streets for machines and people should work or punish, we do not know.
So when trials start, we have an option to do. We can allow history to repeat himself, and powerful interest to shape our streets in a way. Or we can be different paths – one where we are clearly remembered that cities are the places where the walking, cycling and transportation should be prioritized. This means ensure that salvation, equity and public space is not sold in the name of innovation.
Driverless vehicles can still help us solve some real transportation problems. But when they come at the cost of our freedom to walk across the street, then we solve the mistakes.
