Technology and Values

Technology and Values?

A decade or so ago, I was engaged as an expert witness in a catastrophic motorcoach case. The wildly-incompetent law firm hiring me engaged forty-eight experts. As their bus expert, I was the forty eighth engaged! ?

In the incident, after four days off-duty, during which time she spent living normal hours, the driver was assigned to a Cleveland to New York City run that began 11 PM at night and ended late the next morning. So her shift began after she had already been awake for about 16 hours, and ended after she had been awake for nearly 30. Such an assignment is illegal in Canada, the European Union, Australia and possible other nations with a grasp of scientific principles and a regard for human life. Anyway, on the return trip, after the driver may have gotten three to four hours’ sleep during her eight hours off duty, she began swerving all over the road, fell fast asleep, travelled several hundred feet with at least one tire on the freeway’s rumble strip, and her coach careened over a guardrail and into a ditch. Several passengers were killed; dozens were mutilated. Missed completely by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), three passengers stated that that they were awakened by violent mini-bumps: All three thought the coach had ventured onto a railroad track. But this joyride failed to jog the driver awake.

Before my turn to testify, a well-renowned sleep doctor, Charles Czeisler – a sleep consultant to at least five NBA teams – testified (also for the plaintiffs) that operating a motorcoach (much less under these conditions) was a “boring sedentary job.” Learning of such ignorance, I informed my counsel that I would testify to no such thing. As a result, my counsel could not put me “on the stand,” where I would otherwise have buried the defendant with a mountain of evidence. (Among it, the defendant’s huge motorcoach company’s Director of Safety recalled meeting the Director of Scheduling only once – when he bumped into him in a hallway.) Shift inversion was rampant. Coordination non-existent. A reckless disregard permeated the company’s “culture.”

Cellphones, Signage and Roadway Configurations

On long road trips during my childhood, my mom served as the navigator, squinting at tiny lines and microscopic print on fold-out maps as wide and the entire front seat. Today, those unfamiliar with the roadways are sloppily guided by a female voice in one’s phone. In most circumstances, far from crisscrossed highways in suburban and rural areas, such technology is a marvel – except, of course, where the instructions contradict inaccurate, confusing or non-existent signage. In contrast, these problems are compounded in dense urban areas where multiple freeway ramps practically overlap, much less at night, much less with many or most American motorists. Such would not be a problem had our highways and byways possessed any semblance of law enforcement to confine travel speeds to those for which these roadways were designed. With no law enforcement, those motorists familiar with the roadways whiz by and race from lane to lane, rarely signaling – the latter an act of marginal value with the profusion of overlapping ramps combined with the tiny segments of each roadway before the motorist encounters the next ramp.

To such motorists familiar with these intermingling clusters, these characteristics pose few challenges. But the same is not true for those driving via instructions from their phones – instructions that cannot keep up with the pace even when they match the signage (which they do less often at the apex of multiple ramps). This is particularly true at night. And even worse during a downpour, which rarely slows the typical American motorist in those urban areas where driving more slowly is the most important. Compounding this difficulty is the fact that the unfamiliar motorist must also constantly glance upwards or sidewards to read the street signs to which his or her cellphone refers. Not to dwell on this component of the problem, but one’s vehicle will travel 88 feet during the second its driver glances at the signage – assuming he or she can even read it since the forks of multiple ramps and freeways often require the posting of multiple signs. Our hapless motorist must, thus, read several signs to identify the one that identifies his or her ramp- or freeway-of-choice. Plus many of these signs are placed literally at the forks.

As if these challenges were not enough, the night vision of the average motorist at age 50 is roughly half as good as that same motorist’s night vision was at age 25. And this is true for motorists with good vision. Particularly for older, near-sighted drivers with thick eyeglasses, the risks which these other factors comprise are further compounded.

And if these factors were still not enough, levels of illumination vary continuously – even with the best-illuminated roadways plastered with signage outlining curves (that require traveling at lower speeds) and warning signs – only the best of which are illuminated, much less flashing. But even the finest roadway illumination is compromised by constant changes from fellow-vehicles’ headlights, which shine and fade continually, typically from multiple directions at those points where the roadways curve to accommodate ramps (and even on curved roadway sections between ramps). Worse yet, those motorists with the most difficulty seeing their way through this maze operate with their high beams engaged, making the vision of fellow-motorists even more difficult, and functionally blinding them in worst-case situations.

Worst of all, these conditions often exist when the intersections of these multiple ramps and roadways are heavily trafficked. Trying to merge into a travel lane between one tailgating vehicle followed by another regularly causes motorists to turn onto the wrong roadway or ramp -- or swerving across multiple lanes at the last minute, experiencing the risks of a blindfolded tightrope artist.

Caution and Courtesy

This often terrifying set of challenges could be far more easily met in a society of motorists with a realistic exercise of caution and a slather of courtesy. This is because this combination of risks – short roadway segments, multiple overlapping ramps, high speeds, compromised visibility, poor motorist vision, constantly varying levels and angles of illumination – could usually be accommodated if motorists paid attention to the turn signals of those motorists forced to rapidly change lanes to follow their paths of choice – often reinforced (consciously or subconsciously) by the instructions from their cellphones’ navigators. But as motorists experiencing these conditions and exposed to the risks they pose surely know, the awareness of such caution by fellow-motorists seems to occur intermittently, and the notion of slowing to allow a signaling vehicle to merge in front of it seems anathema to the modern American motorist.

The absence of caution and courtesy in the whirlwind of nighttime urban freeway driving is oddly paired with a stunning irony. Traveling in perfectly fair weather during the daytime, on the slow-speed “local” and “collector” streets of small townships, it is routine to observe motorists coming (often screeching) to a stop, at a mid-block position, to let some pedestrian -- transfixed by some image on his or her phone -- stroll across the roadway as though it were the hallway to his or her home’s kitchen or bathroom.

In other words, we exercise the greatest caution when it is the least needed, while abandoning it altogether where its exercise is critical to roadway safety.

Moby Dick in a Canal

Now picture a 45-foot motorcoach (ironically rarely permitted to even travel along slow-speed local streets) traveling in the whirlwind of high-speed freeway activity noted above. Without using the vehicle’s mass as a deterrent to drivers of smaller vehicles, a motorcoach driver unfamiliar with every twist and turn, and the length of every stretch of every roadway segment and every ramp, operates at great risk. This risk is, of course, mitigated for that motorcoach’s passengers by its mass, as impact forces approximate the inverse of the square of the masses. (In other words, the impact forces on a 4500-lb. SUV colliding with a 45,000-lb. motorcoach are not ten times that of the motorcoach, but crudely 100 times as great.) But this fact hardly deters collisions, but instead, compounds their consequences exponentially for the smaller vehicles with which they might collide.

Of course, it is noteworthy to recognize that while the multiplicity of canals bend (or curve), the vehicles forced to travel within and among them do so only when a collision distorts their structures. Particularly accustomed to cartoons and, even more recently, special effects, this reality may not seem that dramatic. But in real life, it clearly is. Were motorcoaches made of rubber and horizontal springs, the impacts would obviously be lessened when those impacts occur. Made out of steel, and supported by a structure of tubular steel frame members, motorcoaches do not enjoy such flexibility. Because of its length, a motorcoach or large bus or truck is most vulnerable when operating through this network of crisscrossing canals.

Problems Speeding Past Solutions

Like it or not, most of the variables in the modern, urban freeway landscape will not realistically change. Travel speeds will not abate. That this courtesy continues to diminish among American motorists is hardly trivial. The weather will become worse as our climate becomes less forgiving, yielding far more hurricanes and heavy rainstorms each successive year.? Headlamp illumination will only increase, and as these other factors compound it, some motorists’ greater reliance on their “brights” will only make this problem worse. And there is no chance that modern taxpayers (in both America and likely many other countries) will improve signage, much less restore law enforcement levels to those of my youth. The notion of reconfiguring our high-speed roadways – we are far behind in even repairing those we have – is, frankly, inconceivable.

One improvement for large vehicles – particularly large passenger vehicles – could involve better coloring. For a brief period decades ago, reflective striping (3M company was the most prominent manufacturer) began to appear more – particularly on schoolbuses. Today, one observes this masking mostly to mark the perimeter dimensions of large trucks (particularly on the rear). Painting motorcoaches a distinct color also has its limits: The best colors – fire engine and ambulance red, schoolbus/taxicab yellow, or the lime green color of an occasional taxi – are already taken. Ironically, sedans, pickup trucks and SUVs have been moving in the opposite direction, as the vast majority are now painted the same color as asphalt or the forest beyond much of it: Black, various shades of great or dark green. Even dark blue has become rare. One observes a red car rarely. An orange or turquoise one almost never. This last characteristic – vehicles often barely visible in broad daylight -- is even more ominous during night driving – and even on the moderately high-speed winding roads in the countryside, particularly when a motorist forgets to engage his or her vehicle’s headlamps altogether. (Many or most buses are wired to keep the headlamps on, night and day).

One can be lulled into deep naivety by the overstated promises of how technology will make out lives better. This theme has recently become more of a debate as artificial intelligence invades out environment and our lives. But this promise is failing us in many more conventional areas. I wish I had an answer. But to reiterate an already-overused transportation-flavored cliché, all roads seem to be pointing in the wrong direction. Simply being careful is no longer enough.

The single best answer is for a motorcoach driver to avoid certain roadways altogether – when one can. With assistance from a dispatcher with a digital map on a large screen, a motorcoach driver has a chance of doing so in many environments, even while this slows down the travel time (passengers will rarely understand or respect the safety versus travel time trade-offs involved here). But this solution is not always possible when a coach is thousands of miles away from its driver’s dispatcher. Plus there are often limited routes. Plus there are occasional detours. Confronting the nightmare of worst-case situations cited above is not always possible. Plus, the motorcoach business is thickened by customers who prefer to travel at night – and sleep on the coach, as a cost-effective alternative to flying and sleeping is a hotel or motel.

Another solution would be to equip every coach facing such an operating environment with an acutely farsighted human navigator who can monitor both the map on his or her cellphone or (better yet) tablet, match it with signage far in advance of the vehicle, and verbally instructing and guiding the driver in ways that the robot in the driver’s cellphone cannot.

Finally, motorcoaches would do well to exaggerate one of the five principles of defensive driving: “Make sure they [drivers of fellow vehicles] see you.” Various states likely place limits on the number of extra light fixtures mounted on a motorcoach, or how often (if at all) they may flash. But I doubt any regulations limit the use of reflective tape.

Frankly, the best solution would be to forgo the advertising and other panoramas plastered on the sides and rear of a motorcoach, and paint the entire exterior (other than its windows and light fixtures) bright, reflective “traffic cone” orange. The vehicle’s message would be, “I’m big, slow and often new to the roadway’s configuration. So give me more space, and pay more attention to my position and movement.”

Frankly, a national fleet of bright orange motorcoaches might be an eyesore to outsiders. But this treatment might give their drivers and passengers a much-needed edge when forced to travel under the most dangerous conditions in the most challenging of operating environments.

Wonderful it would be if our regulatory agencies required such treatment. And they do so for schoolbuses and fire engines – although, interestingly, such requirements are usually local requirements. But the recognition of this importance is universal, even while a few states (e.g., Massachusetts) allows white schoolbuses to contain red and amber flashers and stop arms. Otherwise, at the Federal level, regulatory agencies have not shown the values to even regulate shift inversion. Yet our legal system holds the drivers of any public transportation vehicles to the highest standard and duty of care. We are classified as “common carriers.” ?

So to protect our drivers and passengers, and our businesses, the values and concerns for optimally addressing the constraints noted above must come “from the inside” – from us. The question is: Do we have such values? ?