contributing opinion column Sept 21, Lansing State Journal

My column made it into the Sunday state capital newspaper in the opinion section, with a headshot. Bring driverless car testing to Michigan, develop a national Michigan Standard for driverless car testing. 

The Michigan Standard

"Michigan should let the cars drive. Michigan should take the lead on developing national testing standards for driverless vehicles.  If a piece of driverless vehicle technology cannot pass the rigors of navigating a northern Michigan winter, that equipment is not ready for delivery on a nationwide basis.

   Development of a "Michigan Standard" for testing would bring business to the state and set the bar for the national good. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is actively seeking guidance on protocols for testing more advanced driverless technologies. Michigan should provide some of that guidance. Michigan would draw driverless vehicle technology developers to Michigan to test their vehicles. With rapidly advancing computer technology, soon even small startups will be able to contribute. Innovation can as easily happen in a Gladstone garage as the Google campus in Mountain View.

   Google’s spring 2014 release of their prototype vehicle has captivated Americans, but in a May Associated Press article, Google was not confident their vehicles will work in inclement weather. The cars have never been driven in snow.  In California, Google's driverless car testing relies on a network of predetermined route information, a ‘supersized’ map imagery database far more detailed than what’s available for the rest of the country.

   Michigan autonomous vehicle testing continues to develop, with a driverless car campus being built in Ann Arbor, a fleet of connected cars plying the highways downstate, and MDOT snowplows collecting automated plowing data. Michigan need not fear driverless technologies. Backup proximity alarms and ABS braking are examples of lower function autonomous technologies many of us have in our cars and increasingly rely on. The more advanced cars being tested today are already proving to be safer than human drivers.

   Developing a public test track, traffic corridor, or an entire region for autonomous vehicle testing in northern Michigan would bring driverless vehicle testing to the state for real-world American winter conditions. What city in Upper Michigan will be the first to declare itself “driverless vehicle testing ready” and welcome these vehicles citywide?

   The question of who's at fault in a collision should not delay testing to a Michigan Standard. The 2014 Brooking Institute report "Product Liability and Driverless Cars" took an in-depth look at the issue, and concluded liability will be cleanly handled and assigned in a manner similar to standard product liability for other developing technologies. Fears of vague legal provisions regulating autonomous vehicle liability should not deter their testing and propagation in Michigan.

These cars need to be tested somewhere- why not northern Michigan’s winters? The country's vehicles and passengers will be safer because of it. We drive in snow like nowhere else, Michiganders owe it to the rest of the country.

 Michigan can choose to either take the drivers’ seat - or be the backseat drivers - in the driverless cars of the future. Michigan has little to lose lobbying NHTSA for a "Michigan Standard" for driverless cars, and everything to gain, by leveraging our automobile heritage and our northern winters for the good of the nation."

© 2014 mikeTbeck ARR

The Bicycle as Social Disruptor

The Bicycle as Social Disruptor:

 Media Framing and Public Perception of Bicycling

By Mike T. Beck

Principal at the Better Bicycling Bureau

©2014 Mike T Beck ARR

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Abstract

     The history of bicycling is interwoven with the forces of progress and popular culture in America. During the 19^th Century, bicycling widely contributed to the advancement of society, affecting public attitudes on technology, the women’s liberation movement, paternalism, politics, tax policy, public roads and urban mobility. Despite myriad foundational roles in the forward march of American progress, the bicycle has been roundly demonized since its invention.   

     Although the bicycle is recognized as a practical tool against fossil fuel dependency, American conventions originally established to favor bicycling now discourage its broader social acceptance in the fight to combat climate change. The role of the bicycle as historic disruptor across a broad swath of social conventions led to enduring cultural tropes that hinder a broader reuptake of the bicycle into contemporary American life. 

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The Bicycle as Social Disruptor:

 Media Framing and Public Perception of Bicycling

     The bicycle is a commonplace machine that needs little introduction. Bicycles are ridden worldwide and linked to many developments of the modern age. Motor vehicles, airplanes, and improved roads all have their roots in the bicycle industry (Taylor, 2008). The Druyea brothers, inventors of the motor car, were bicycle mechanics. The Wright brothers began construction of their Wright flyers at Kitty Hawk as bicycle mechanics tinkering in the back room of their bicycle shop. (Hurst, 2009). The call for better roads in America was originally led by bicyclists. These efforts advanced widespread civic and tax reforms for public infrastructure (Potter, 1891).

     Bicycling and popular culture in America are inseparable. Before the end of the 19^th Century, bicycling had become so entrenched in American society it was regarded as a new force of social change (Aronson, 1952). The bicycle fundamentally reshaped the everyday lives of Americans and “could not be abandoned without turning the social progress of the world backward” (Harmond, 1971, pg. 241).

     Bicycling thrived during the depression of the early 1890s, a vigorous industry amidst national economic downturn (Burr, 2013). A bicycle was the emblem of technological progress of the 19^th Century. In the 1890s a third of all US patent applications were bicycle related, in such volumes the bicycle remains the only invention to ever require its own separate patent office (Reed, 2014).  During this time, bicycling became both more affordable and an agent of flight from the drudgery of the city.  The bicycle proved itself as a common vehicle for proletarian escapes to the countryside (Harmond, 1971). In this way, the bicycle rejected the civilization and technology it arose from by putting wild America within striking reach of a city rider.

full paper available from bbb.betterbicyclingbureau.com