Phoenix, Arizona before self-driving cars


Time-travel with me back to the year 2021, when self-driving cars were still being developed. I know that it's difficult to imagine, but this blog is about journeys of the imagination, so please try. This won't be pleasant, but looking back in history often isn't. I'll try to keep it as straightforward as I can.

Let's imagine a quiet Sunday morning in suburban Phoenix, in a place called Peoria. I enjoy pedaling around in the mornings, and although it's a very safe neighborhood, with very little crime, and no wild animals wandering around, I'm preparing for danger.

The danger, as you may have guessed, is that the cars are not yet self-driving. That is, people have to control them, keep them between lines, stop at lights, yield for pedestrians, that sort of stuff. And as we all know, people aren't really good at that sort of thing. They're much better doing more human things, like being creative, or caring for other people. And things were very dangerous in 2021, not because people were intentionally careless, or intentionally cruel, but because the process of guiding a car isn't something that people are good at. Even a few seconds looking away, at a cell phone for example, was potentially lethal.

When I stop for coffee, people usually ask me how it is to be out there pedaling around. They always remind me to be careful, knowing full well the dangers that I face. I wear colorful clothing, and have front and rear lights, and usually the only suggestions that I get is to add more lights, make them even brighter, make them flash more. Some people just stare at me, as if I were doing a death-defying act, and actually they're not too far wrong. And it isn't just true of bicyclists and pedestrians, people in cars are in danger, too.

In my lifetime, the danger of death or injury in a car was just taken for granted. From the time I was a kid, it was just referred to as "the death toll". Unlike nowadays, where every accident from a self-driving car is a major piece of news, back then the accidents were just numbered, and people moved on barely noticing them, even when people were killed. There was an industry built around who was to blame for accidents, and when cars did hit each other, even lightly, there was an industry designed to handle the money that had to be exchanged at that point.

Like all new technologies, it took a while for it to be embraced by everyone, especially the old-timers, who also rejected pasteurized milk, and seat belts, among other things. Then after a while it just became the new normal. If you talk to young people nowadays, they will never know what a DUI was, or a hit-and-run, or a speeding ticket. They will be sickened by the casual attitude that was taken about the pain and suffering that was caused, but that was then and this is now.

Thank you for visiting 2021 with me.
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