Futuramas of the present: the “driver problem” in the autonomous vehicle sociotechnical imaginary

Abstract

The visions surrounding “self-driving” or “autonomous” vehicles are an exemplary instance of a sociotechnical imaginary: visions of a future technology that has yet to be developed or is in the process of development. One of the central justifications for the development of autonomous vehicles is the claim that they will reduce automobility related death and injury. Central to this narrative is the assumption that more than 90% of road crashes are the result of “driver error.” This paper describes the process by which this statistic has been constructed within road safety research and subsequently accepted as a received fact. It is one of the principal semiotic components of the autonomous vehicle sociotechnical imaginary: if human drivers are responsible for ~90% of road crashes, autonomous vehicles should in principle be able to reduce road death and injury rates by a similar percentage. In this paper, it is argued that death and injury are not an aggregate of events that can be distributed across the three central variables of traditional road safety research: the driver, the vehicle, and the environment. The autonomous vehicle sociotechnical imaginary has embraced the central assumption of road safety research, that road violence is not an intrinsic property of automobility but is contingent because largely due to driver error. On the basis of this assumption it has been possible to configure autonomous vehicles as the solution to road violence. Although sociotechnical imaginaries are typically oriented towards the future, it is the significance of the autonomous vehicle sociotechnical imaginary in the present that is the focus of this paper. Autonomous vehicles are not the radically transformational technology their proponents claim but simply the most recent of a succession of automobility sociotechnical imaginaries. They are not transformational because their promotion ensures the continued reproduction of more of the same: namely, more automobility.

The vermin of the street: the politics of violence and thenomosof automobility

“…Second, through the physical removal and occlusion of road violence, of victims and their injuries, and the concealment of the grief experienced by survivors. Third, the development by the automobile industry of a succession of automobility sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff 2015) that hold out the promise of a future of safe automobility to be achieved through technological fixes (Braun and Randell 2020). Fourth, in locating the primary cause of violence in the driver (and secondarily the vehicle and the environment), not only is attention deflected from the hyperobject that is automobility, it is discursively reduced to nothing more than a minimalist dictionary definition of automobility: 'the use of automobiles or motor vehicles as a mode of transport' (OED 3rd ed., entry for Automobility).…”

“…As Mark Lamont (2012) has put it, 'drivers or victims [are] blamed for negligence, but vehicles almost always exonerated and considered inert, speechless witnesses to crime'. Not only vehicles and automobile manufacturers but, more importantly, automobility in its entirety is thus relieved of causality and responsibility (Beckmann 2004;Braun and Randell 2020). In short, it is automobility that is afforded complete impunity.…”

“…Automobility's distribution in time and space has resulted in the dispersal and dissolution of responsibility. An assemblage of agents have, however, successfully persuaded us that causal and moral agency lies primarily with 'the driver' (Braun and Randell 2020) and not elsewhere.…”

Intelligent Locking System using Deep Learning for Autonomous Vehicle in Internet of Things

“…Statistic states that usually vehicle crashes happen because of human error and it is proven when 90% of fatal vehicle accidents are due to human failure [21] hence, the AV's technologies got the potential to reduce the death statistics because of human error. Thus, driverless cars are a future technology that is needed by humans to scale down the deaths and injuries from car collisions.…”

“…Thus, driverless cars are a future technology that is needed by humans to scale down the deaths and injuries from car collisions. The reason for crashes comes from the driver's focus interruption [21]. On the other hand, there is a website called the house energy and commerce committee that claims that traffic deaths can be reduced up to 90% and can save up to 30,000 people yearly by using driverless vehicles or known as self-driving cars.…”