There’s something I’ve been trying to find a way to say for quite a while now. Mighk Wilson just said it, and very eloquently:
The culture creates the system, not the other way around. American bikeway advocates are attempting to take a short-cut; trying to build a system that will change the culture. One need only look at the anti-cyclist stories burning across the Web to see that isn’t working.
The problem isn’t just vitriol. It also is shoddy and hazardous design of facilities. People who try to create the culture by creating the system don’t know how to create the system either. Worse, in the hope of stringing along politicians, they heap praises on bicycle facilities which make shabby design compromises.
Mighk has summed up the problem and given it a larger scope. You may read his entire essay here.
Good point, John!
Elequently condensed, John. But I still suggest readers click over to Mighk’s page.
The development of autonomous vehicles (both automobiles and trucks) will help instill a new culture for societal traffic flow.
Here are some points to consider and design parameter concepts that are being considered.
Civil, mechanical, electrical and computer engineers are presently designing for semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles. In all the design work, collision avoidance operations are being built within the autonomous vehicle system. One of the biggest early on problems for the engineers to solve is having the autonomous vehicle perform the best collision avoidance process, given the risk that human errors are happening realtime around the autonomous vehicle. The mass momentum calculations could result in a collision and now the least cost collision must be performed by the autonomous vehicle–but what is the least cost collision-people, deer, or bicycles on the road or people within other vehicles on the road? What really matters is to avoid all collisions and this translates into realtime vehicle speed control based on constantly changing traffic and environmental conditions. Traffic congestion on a roadway, for example, whether caused by motor vehicles, people, animals or bicyclists requires speed adjustment by approaching motor vehicles in order to avoid a collision. The design parameter is to avoid all collisions, i.e. As opposed to the autonomous vehicle being the bully on the road, taking out any smaller mass congestion, just because it can make the physics calculations to do so. Human motorists make human errors, but still possess overall capability to control their vehicle with the touch of their hands and feet, in order to safety proceed, whenever they come upon congestion on the roadway, whether vehicles, people, animals or bicyclists. The safe speed takes congestion into consideration as opposed to a posted speed limit or speed capability of a vehicle. Many bicyclists have written about their fears of being involved in collisions with motor vehicles, which actually is a fear of being encountered by a human error motorist or being bullied by a motorist. Riding two abreast reduces the visual identification error. As a society, we are attempting to reduce bullying by virtue of bigness as much as possible and culture, law, and rules are how society is attempting to manage the bullying.
For a start, improvement of bicycle travel space on the roads should include reducing speed limits on most roads, particularly to accommodate sight distance. And secondarily, speed limits should be reduced with the objective that motor vehicle traffic is actually moving just in time for when the next traffic signal is changing to green. It is very often that motor vehicles are going 35 to 40 mph between traffic signals and then have to completely stop at a red light–making average travel speed less than approx. 20 mph. If speed limits were reduced to the practical average speed, often in the 15 to 25 mph range, then bicyclists would more safely be within the mix of traffic flow–less speed differentials between motor vehicles and bicycles. And of course with reduced speed limits, there would be less accidental injuries to pedestrians and motorists as well. School zone speed limits work off the same principle of reducing speed differentials between motor vehicles and pedestrians or passenger drop offs.
So while, the design of autonomous vehicles can seem rigidly governed by the laws of physics, the autonomous vehicle design process really will help us shape and nuture our vehicular culture by the necessity of defaulting to a logical progression of what the public simultaneously wants and needs to have humanized travel.
Andy Bauer