IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/palcom/v7y2020i1d10.1057_s41599-020-00655-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Braun

    (Institute for Advanced Studies)

  • Richard Randell

    (Switzerland and Institute for Advanced Studies)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Braun & Richard Randell, 2020. "Futuramas of the present: the “driver problem” in the autonomous vehicle sociotechnical imaginary," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-10, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:7:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-020-00655-z
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-020-00655-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-020-00655-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41599-020-00655-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Katharina Manderscheid, 2014. "The Movement Problem, the Car and Future Mobility Regimes: Automobility as Dispositif and Mode of Regulation," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 604-626, September.
    2. Avigail Ferdman, 2020. "Corporate ownership of automated vehicles: discussing potential negative externalities," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 95-113, January.
    3. Richard Randell, 2017. "The microsociology of automobility: the production of the automobile self," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(5), pages 663-676, September.
    4. Dag Balkmar, 2018. "Violent mobilities: men, masculinities and road conflicts in Sweden," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(5), pages 717-732, September.
    5. Sumantran, Venkat & Fine, Charles & Gonsalvez, David, 2017. "Faster, Smarter, Greener: The Future of the Car and Urban Mobility," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262036665, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Du, Manqing & Zhang, Tingru & Liu, Jinting & Xu, Zhigang & Liu, Peng, 2022. "Rumors in the air? Exploring public misconceptions about automated vehicles," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 237-252.
    2. Jack Stilgoe & Miloš Mladenović, 2022. "The politics of autonomous vehicles," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-6, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jonas Larsen, 2017. "The making of a pro-cycling city: Social practices and bicycle mobilities," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(4), pages 876-892, April.
    2. Luca Nitschke, 2020. "Reconstituting Automobility: The Influence of Non-Commercial Carsharing on the Meanings of Automobility and the Car," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-20, August.
    3. Sophie Hindes & Bianca Fileborn, 2023. "‘Why did he do it? Because he’s a Fucking Bloke’: Victim Insights into the Perpetration of Street Harassment," The British Journal of Criminology, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, vol. 63(3), pages 668-686.
    4. Sergey Naumov & David R. Keith & Charles H. Fine, 2020. "Unintended Consequences of Automated Vehicles and Pooling for Urban Transportation Systems," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(5), pages 1354-1371, May.
    5. Juan Zhang & Brenda SA Yeoh, 2016. "Harnessing exception: Mobilities, credibility, and the casino," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(6), pages 1064-1081, June.
    6. Cubells, Jerònia & Miralles-Guasch, Carme & Marquet, Oriol, 2023. "Gendered travel behaviour in micromobility? Travel speed and route choice through the lens of intersecting identities," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    7. Michał Suchanek & Agnieszka Szmelter-Jarosz, 2019. "Environmental Aspects of Generation Y’s Sustainable Mobility," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-13, June.
    8. Frauke Behrendt, 2019. "Cycling the Smart and Sustainable City: Analyzing EC Policy Documents on Internet of Things, Mobility and Transport, and Smart Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-30, February.
    9. Sara Poveda-Reyes & Ashwani Kumar Malviya & Elena García-Jiménez & Gemma Dolores Molero & Maria Chiara Leva & Francisco Enrique Santarremigia, 2021. "Application of Mathematical and Computational Methods to Identify Women’s Priorities in Transport," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-43, March.
    10. Ferdman, Avigail, 2021. "Well-being and mobility: A new perspective," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 44-55.
    11. Benedict E Singleton & Nanna Rask & Gunnhildur Lily Magnusdottir & Annica Kronsell, 2022. "Intersectionality and climate policy-making: The inclusion of social difference by three Swedish government agencies," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 40(1), pages 180-200, February.
    12. Sergey Naumov & David Keith, 2023. "Optimizing the economic and environmental benefits of ride‐hailing and pooling," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(3), pages 904-929, March.
    13. McLaren, Arlene Tigar, 2016. "Families and transportation: Moving towards multimodality and altermobility?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 218-225.
    14. Vietinghoff, Christina, 2021. "An intersectional analysis of barriers to cycling for marginalized communities in a cycling-friendly French City," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    15. Fotini Kehagia, 2021. "The Transition to a Low-Carbon Smart Mobility in a Sociotechnical Context," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-3, June.
    16. Wen-I Lin & Justin Spinney, 2021. "Mobilising the dispositive: Exploring the role of dockless public bike sharing in transforming urban governance in Shanghai," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(10), pages 2095-2116, August.
    17. Koglin, Till & Mukhtar-Landgren, Dalia, 2021. "Contested values in bike-sharing mobilities – A case study from Sweden," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:7:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-020-00655-z. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.nature.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.