Driverless Dilemmas: Jaywalking and Other Unpredictable Human Behaviors
Photo: Eric Fischer
Recently, we dialogued about some of the current obstacles driverless cars have to overcome. Per the New York Times, jaywalking — and other unpredictable behavior from humans — is an additional challenge that autonomous vehicles will need to conquer. And a safety issue that city planners will need to address, as they modify and add to the existing traffic rules in their locale.
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Photo: General Motors
The challenge for AVs
As the Times’ Eric Taub relates, jaywalking presents a unique obstacle for self-driving vehicles. For instance, in cities like Los Angeles or New York City, it’s common practice for locals to cross the road whenever and wherever they choose.
Since driverless cars are programmed to avoid harming humans on the street or in other vehicles, the concern is that pedestrians will abuse this built-in safety feature and start jaywalking more. This, in turn, would trigger AVs to stop more frequently, which would cause traffic jams since non-AVs would also have to stop.
The challenge for city planners and automakers
One solution to the jaywalking concern is for cities to implement gates at the corners of intersections. The gates would open and close periodically for pedestrians, when the built-in sensors detected that the road was safe for them to do so.
From the automakers’ standpoint, OEMs will need to perfect their AVs’ responses to guarantee human safety even in the trickiest of traffic situations (jaywalking included). Yet, they’ll also have to program the AVs with a secondary goal: reacting to unpredictable human behaviors in a way that reduces rather than increases congestion.
Concluding thoughts
So, in short, city planners and AV tech developers still have a lot of fine-tuning to do to keep everyone safe and help prevent traffic jams. But like with any new technology, it’s important to recognize how far the industry has come with it. For instance, GM is one of many OEMs that are on the forefront of developing AV technology for future public use. Learn more about its rumored electric AV models here.
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News Source: New York Times
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