Jaywalking
Until the arrival of the motor car, the street belonged to humans and horses. The motor car was regarded as an interloper, and was generally blamed for collisions with pedestrians. Cities introduced speed limits and other safety measures to protect pedestrians from the motor car.
The motor industry fought back. Their goal was to shift the blame for collisions onto the foolish or foolhardy pedestrian, who had crossed the road in the wrong place at the wrong time, or showed insufficient respect to our new four-wheeled masters. A new crime was invented, known as jaywalking, and newspapers were encouraged to describe road accidents in these terms.
In March 2018, a middle-aged woman was killed by a self-driving car. This is thought to be the first recorded death by a fully autonomous vehicle. According to the US National Safety Transportation Board (NTSB), the code failed to recognise her as a pedestrian because she was not at an obvious designated crossing. In other words, she was jaywalking.
Aidan Lewis, Jaywalking: How the car industry outlawed crossing the road(BBC News, 12 February 2014)
Peter Norton, Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street (Technology and Culture, Vol 48, April 2007)
Katyanna Quach, Remember the Uber self-driving car that killed a woman crossing the street? The AI had no clue about jaywalkers (The Register, 6 November 2019)
Joseph Stromberg, The forgotten history of how automakers invented the crime of "jaywalking" (Vox, 4 November 2015)
The motor industry fought back. Their goal was to shift the blame for collisions onto the foolish or foolhardy pedestrian, who had crossed the road in the wrong place at the wrong time, or showed insufficient respect to our new four-wheeled masters. A new crime was invented, known as jaywalking, and newspapers were encouraged to describe road accidents in these terms.
In March 2018, a middle-aged woman was killed by a self-driving car. This is thought to be the first recorded death by a fully autonomous vehicle. According to the US National Safety Transportation Board (NTSB), the code failed to recognise her as a pedestrian because she was not at an obvious designated crossing. In other words, she was jaywalking.
Aidan Lewis, Jaywalking: How the car industry outlawed crossing the road(BBC News, 12 February 2014)
Peter Norton, Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street (Technology and Culture, Vol 48, April 2007)
Katyanna Quach, Remember the Uber self-driving car that killed a woman crossing the street? The AI had no clue about jaywalkers (The Register, 6 November 2019)
Joseph Stromberg, The forgotten history of how automakers invented the crime of "jaywalking" (Vox, 4 November 2015)
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