Mostly Harmless

Robo-Cropper

How many accidents are caused, or made worse, by a mis-ordered unconscious list of priorities?

You are standing on a new carpet in your neighbour's sitting room, holding a cup of hot coffee. Through the sitting room door you are horrified to see that an ambitious early toddler has managed to open a stairgate and is wobbling giddily on the top step of a long staircase. The right thing to do is to drop the coffee and skip up the stairs as fast as possible (mere shouting often destabilizes toddlers). But a significant minority of people will waste a precious half second attempting to put the coffee down carefully. Not spilling our drinks (especially if we are guests) is a habit of almost instinctive strength; overriding it takes conscious effort, or practice.

I've had a bad week for drivers (of both sexes) on four wheels attempting to run me over on my two. In today's sorry case I had made good eye contact with one bent on entering from a side road and I knew that she had seen me. But still she kept coming, so that I was pushed into the other lane (which, luckily, was empty) as she shouldered her way onto the road. I waved (in a manner of speaking) and was acknowledged. Then she continued - not especially quickly - on her way.

I've been pondering her state of mind at the point when she should have stopped but didn't and I think the story of the toddler on the staircase sheds some light on it. I don't think she bore me any ill will. I'd guess she was following the simple rule-of -thumb "don't get behind a cyclist". Probably she's never hit a cyclist but she's been miserably stuck behind one plenty of times.  The weight of experience unconsciously favoured her trying to squeeze in front of me, before she had time to consciously evaluate the safety aspects. Avoiding a known minor hazard (the coffee / the delay) seems to take priority over an obscure major one (the fall / the collision).

So, in the spirit of The Off-Bike I propose "Robo-Cropper". The Off-Bike attempted to safely familiarize cyclists with ghastly mechanical mishaps by conditioning their reflexes. Robo-Cropper uses the same approach with motorists. Robo-Cropper is a convincing humanoid form (say, one of those crash test dummies but with lycra, nostrils, headgear and good hair) mounted on a semi-autonomous bicycle powered by a discreet motor in the dummy's torso and a novel hidden transmission through the saddle and seat-post.

An operator behind a hedge steers and brakes the bike by remote control. The dummy can give signals, turn its head and wail pitifully, but is otherwise passive and of good temperament.

The operator repeatedly sends robo-cropper across the same junctions at busy periods. Robo-cropper cycles responsibly but does not take evasive action and is eventually mown down by a driver with a mis-ordered set of unconscious priorities (or maybe just by a vindictive swine - which is less interesting...) The hope (wishful) is that the shock of believing (if only for a moment) that they have actually caused injury will initiate a rewiring of complacent safety reflexes in the driver's mind.

Obviously the more likely outcome is that all the cars will crash into each other leading to a national scandal similar to the one we'd get if some celebrity were injured exercising the more advanced options of the Off-Bike. Oh well...

Cycle safely and Noli nothis permittere te terere.

Posted at 03:33PM Jun 06, 2008 by John Alderson in Get on yer Bike  |  Comments[0]