What happens to jaywalking when all the cars will stop?
By: Teddy Laurita
What will happen when people can be completely sure that a car going full speed will slam on its brakes if they walk in front of it. Already, level 5 autonomous vehicles are encountering this problem as people seek to abuse the fact that self driving cars will always correctly identify the pedestrian and react with superhuman speed to stop in time. This has the potential to become a major issue in our cityscapes as autonomous cars become more and more widespread. Unfortunately, the obvious answer to this question, make autonomous cars more cautious around pedestrians, doesn’t really cut it. The classic problem we all face of deciding whether to stop for people standing on a street corner is a good example. One of the reasons this issue is so difficult for self driving cars is that pedestrians rely heavily on eye contact, as humans rely heavily on eye contact to display their intentions. The interaction between pedestrian and driver is often heavily influenced by the question, “does that driver see me”. The issue when that question is translated the autonomous cars is, the car always sees you. Some autonomous vehicle developers have posited the idea for cars to recognize pedestrian eye contact and indicate back to the person that the car sees him/her. Others have questioned whether our cities will need to fundamentally change where walkers and drivers will be in relation to each other. However we solve this issue, it is clear that we must start thinking about it now, as the infrastructure for autonomous vehicles is still being developed.
For more solutions to the jaywalking problem, see this article by ideas.4brad:
https://ideas.4brad.com/dance-between-pedestrians-and-robocars
