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How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

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Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#221

Post by IncRnd »

geofft wrote: post #164
mieseratte wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot imagine mandatory tracking devices, anonymous or not, ever being mandatory in the United States. That would never fly.

This is the same United States where just about everyone already carries a tracking device by choice, where lots of people have installed 24/7 network-connected microphones in their homes, and where everyone believes you need ID to fly. This is the same United States where a common political argument is that of course ID should be required to vote because ID is required for everything else, and citizens should just c…

> After all, these beacons not mandatory - they're only needed if you want to use the roads as a pedestrian or cyclist. If you don't, you can drive your car like any real (read: non-poor) American, or use a taxi or bus.

You just wrote two things:

1) Pedestrians and bike riders should wear beacons or aren't "real Americans".

2) Poor Americans aren't "real Americans".

Are those what you meant to write?

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#222

Post by upofadown »

vijayr wrote: post #39

Reporters could send in the basic details of a traffic accident and would get in return a complete article to print the next day. These articles, printed widely, shifted the blame for accidents to pedestrians To me, that is the craziest sentence in the article. Reporters were outsourcing writing to the auto industry? Of course they blamed the pedestrians! In what world is this ethical? What is next? Sending overdose…

The auto companies presumably were providing significant advertising to the newspapers. It's reasonable go along with what a significant customer wants. The papers were probably spinning everything for their major advertisers as a matter of course.

Even today it is fun to compare media articles with the original police press release. The media tends to spin such articles against any involved cyclists/pedestrians for free. There doesn't have to be much of a conspiracy, most of the media's consumers are drivers and don't want to hear bad things about that group.

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#223

Post by kqr »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #96
jdhopeunique wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If automated vehicles become popular, I predict new crimes will be added in addition to jaywalking. Cyclists may be restricted and anything else that confuses AI drivers. If certain intersections or sections of road consistently confuse AI drivers, automakers will lobby for ways to change these roadways. I suspect calls for AI regulation by people like Elon Musk are really attempts at regulatory capture to make autom…

Absolutely. I see this here on hacker news with people excited about the notion of doing away with stop lights so that AI traffic can flow easily. People are completely ignoring the existence of pedestrians and cyclists. It would not be surprising to see a new crime of "hindering an autonomous automobile" be lobbied for.

The irony of it all is that traffic signals were introduced to make traffic flow more easily! The primary function of the traffic signal lies not in the red period, but the green. Traffic signals are what lets you blow through intersections with bad visibility at 50 mph, rather thanhave to slow down to 15 and carefully check for cross-traffic.

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#224

Post by buckminster »

closeparen wrote: post #64
krisdol wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they do cross, they have the right of way. Outside of maybe the autobahn, you should never be driving a car fast enough to where you cannot see a pedestrian in time to stop for them. It's pretty unlikely that the pedestrian is ever found at fault for an accident in Germany.

You have the right of way when crossing against a signal? Why bother with signals then?

Where I live the signals are compulsory for drivers and advisory for pedestrians. It is not unreasonable for the regulation to apply only to the people who choose to create the risk.

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#225

Post by [deleted] »

adrianN wrote: post #184
whatshisface wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only a matter of time before some stupid kids start jumping in the way of self-driving cars to make them brake hard. That's when we'll see the anti-pedestrian regulations appear, by my estimation.

Self driving cars are not magic and judging their braking distance is not much easier than with a human driver. I think kids trying that will quickly find out that it's not too hard to make an autocar hit a human. In other words, I think the problem would quickly solve itself.

[deleted]

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#226

Post by ocschwar »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #170
mlinksva wrote: post #27

Now is an opportunity, perhaps first in ~100 years, perhaps last, to recover the streets for unaugmented humans: slow down cars in urban areas, increase qualifications for humans to drive, eventually ban human drivers entirely, leaving only automated vehicles with enough sensors and going slowly enough to reduce auto-related deaths for pedestrians and passengers alike to zero.

I truly cringe at the thought of a ban on human drivers. There's a considerable amount of freedom in that ability to get in the car, and drive. Otherwise you're beholden to a machine, a corporation, and likely, a government. Trapped and unable to go anywhere unless they authorize it. Aside, you might find this short-fiction story from Vice interesting: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xygzvz/one-star

A freedom you can only exercise with a license.

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#227

Post by neves »

jdhopeunique wrote: post #46
mlinksva wrote: post #27

Now is an opportunity, perhaps first in ~100 years, perhaps last, to recover the streets for unaugmented humans: slow down cars in urban areas, increase qualifications for humans to drive, eventually ban human drivers entirely, leaving only automated vehicles with enough sensors and going slowly enough to reduce auto-related deaths for pedestrians and passengers alike to zero.

If automated vehicles become popular, I predict new crimes will be added in addition to jaywalking. Cyclists may be restricted and anything else that confuses AI drivers. If certain intersections or sections of road consistently confuse AI drivers, automakers will lobby for ways to change these roadways. I suspect calls for AI regulation by people like Elon Musk are really attempts at regulatory capture to make autom…

When I think of crimes and AI drivers I always think of people using drugs or making sex in driverless taxis.

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#228

Post by spaced-out »

nxsynonym wrote: post #90
spaced-out wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone ate an orange or banana and left the peel on a park bench, I'd still consider that littering.

and? obviously I don't want heaps of chamber pot contents on the sidewalk either. The point I was making is that, yes all littering is bad, but why does the consumer shoulder the burden when a huge majority of packaging can be avoided?

Can be avoided, but there's a cost. Wrapping food in plastic makes it easier, and thus cheaper to distribute, and vastly lowers the risk of foodborn illness. If you get rid of plastic packaging, the consumer will bear that cost in other ways.

I agree that companies often avoid the negative externalities of their activities, and support things like a carbon tax to fix that. But in the case of littering, whoever creates the mess needs to clean it up.

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#229

Post by IncRnd »

konschubert wrote: post #74
appleiigs wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't watch the vid right now, but I don't see how it's not the consumer's responsibility of where they put their trash. It's also the consumer's responsibility to demand environmentally friendly packaging.

The most effective way to handle this is via federal laws.

Many people throughout history have found that when they push for laws for whatever they want, other people do the same thing. See any group of 3 presidential elections and the laws that were passed in the first year of a presidency.

tl;dr Legislating for everyone to do what you want inevitably leads for others to legislate that you do what they want.

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#230

Post by riffic »

vijayr wrote: post #39

Reporters could send in the basic details of a traffic accident and would get in return a complete article to print the next day. These articles, printed widely, shifted the blame for accidents to pedestrians To me, that is the craziest sentence in the article. Reporters were outsourcing writing to the auto industry? Of course they blamed the pedestrians! In what world is this ethical? What is next? Sending overdose…

The use of the word "Accident" is also the result of the automotive industry. "Crash" would be preferable:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/car-accident-car-crash-...

https://www.transalt.org/news/releases/9545

https://archives.cjr.org/language_corner/language_corner_100...

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