Will Robot Cars Make Jaywalking Legal? Maybe, But There's a Cost

A report released this week suggests that if self-driving cars become our new normal, it may mean you can jaywalk with impunity again. As if New Yorkers, Chicagoans, and residents of other major cities don’t do so already.

The National Association of City Transportation Officials, a non-profit with represents cities on issues related to transportation, put out a report this week suggesting cities should allow pedestrians to cross streets anywhere, instead of just crosswalks. The report also says self-driving cars would usually be limited to 20 mph and would be able to use pedestrian-detection technology to slow down or stop in order to avoid hitting folks crossing the road.

“The instinctive human act of walking straight to one’s destination, pejoratively known as ‘jaywalking,’ becomes simply ‘walking,’” writes the authors.

There’s a few issues with this. One, as the linked article notes, is increased travel times as cars move at slower speeds and make frequent stops. Two, even though modern pedestrian-detections systems work well, there’s still a non-zero chance of failure. That could lead to trouble.

Jaywalking was common during the early years of the automobile, but it’s now illegal in most places, though enforcement and obedience of the law vary greatly from city to city.

The report also states that thing could go the other way – an explosion of self-driving cars moving in tandem could make streets so busy that pedestrians will need to use bridges to cross.

What is clear is that at least one author of the report thinks our urban planning over the past century has been poor.

“We have a historic opportunity to reclaim the street and to correct the mistakes of a century of urban planning,” Janette Sadik-Khan, NACTO’s chair and former commissioner of New York City’s transportation department, wrote in the report.

Sure, jaywalking may be legal again someday, but anyone who’s driven in a city knows that many pedestrians already don’t care to follow the law. Maybe they’ll be safer in the future, maybe not, but I giggle a little at the vision of self-driving pods being forced to stop every half-block.

[Image: Stock Photo]