However, warns Norton, “if the tech turns out to actually make cyclist cycling safer for those who have it, but more dangerous for those who don’t, does that become grounds in policy for requiring all cyclists to have the necessary equipment for cars to detect them? If that does, then we now have problems about access to cycling among those with budgets, or deterring cycling in a society where we need more, not less for lots of reasons, including sustainability and public health.”
Norton added: “We are not protecting these unequipped cyclists when we have equipped cyclists, and we are to some degree making their situation more serious as drivers come to expect cyclists to be equipped. And eventually, even road designers and road authorities will start to assume that cyclists should be equipped. Perhaps even the law may begin to expect this.”
This looks like it's going to be jaywalking 2.0. Oh, you got squashed by a car whose driver was busy on their phone? Your fault for not wearing your bEaCoN sweaty
As a cyclist, I will not comply. Driverless cars are a fools solutions to transportation. Even in the incredibly unlikely scenario where they are actually better than a human driver, then that just means people will use them more frequently. Build a fucking train.
Driverless cars will also inherently favour saving the passengers over pedestrians/cyclists in the trolley problem scenarios.
"oh, we looked in side our special encrypted black-box that only we can look in, and it says you, the cyclist were 100% responsible for this accident. We all know computers are made of math - and therefore always objectively correct. Sorry, but we can't be liable for that crushed spine!"
AI training is basically the mathematical version of ideological programming. It only sees what you feed it, so it naturally adopts the ideology of whoever trains it.
Like how all those vision AIs struggled to see people with dark skin because the creators used a database of white people.
this is fucking bleak. "well Ma'am, why wasn't your dead toddler wearing a beacon?"
It just sounds like another license plate scanner, but for cyclists. Get ready for “that chudling who killed 6 cyclists because he was rolling coal in his truck was found innocent. But your rfid was found in an unrest zone / near a crime scene; please come down to the station for questioning.”
This is gonna be "safer" for cycling in the sense that a traffic simulated cyclist that keeps a straight line as driverless cars wizz by them in every and all directions at minimum distance makes literally no "mistakes" such as being blown a bit sideways by a gust of wind. Because if you get hit, that's on you, you moron, you fucking idiot.
Looking forward to get taken out by 3 cars at once because I packed my pannier 5cm too much over the legal beacon limit and get hit.
Since self driving tech failed to materialize on its own, the next logical step for car companies is to make everyone wear transponders and hope that works better. How awful.
So basically it would have been better if they just hadn't passed shit.
Attaching pedestrian beacons to the pavement at random intervals along I-495.
fr if driverless cars ever become a thing it'll be hilarious messing with them. Imagine jumping in front of cars and watching them go nuts and swerve and slam on the brakes and stuff.
...they'll avoid pedestrians, right?
There will be an ethical calculation within a proprietary algorithm on whether to avoid pedestrians or not, on a case by case basis
They will, very conveniently, be used to track where you go and when. The data will be stored securely, and if you ever come to the attention of the government, they will be able to rewind and trace your movements for years. They'll see who you visited and be able to draw a social map, enabling an easy round-up of you and your buddies.
You can leave it at home.
This is filling in one of the holes in the system.
If you don’t wear your government sanctioned tracking device don’t be surprised when you’re minced by 3 tons of steel.
Lol I can’t believe the fucking rapture fanatics have a point with this mark of the beast shit.
"Mark of the beast" was literally referring to the Roman taxation system.
This country fucking sucks. They'll try any solution except something that could make the auto industry sad.
It's kinda mindblowing that there is even a conversation about cyclist protection in this nation that worships at the altar of the petroleum industry. So in that sense we are inching towards progress. But it's glacially slow and sympathies only exist in certain pockets- usually in wealthier gentrified urban areas.
It's cheaper to teach people to avoid cars than cars to avoid people. So cars win. All hail economics.
