AV Industry’s Safety-First Motto Invites Pushback, Backfire
History might not be first in mind for most automotive engineers. But for autonomous systems to be successfully deployed and broadly embraced by the public, the history is instructive.
By Junko Yoshida
There is a clear pattern among autonomous vehicle companies in their response to media inquiries when their AV offspring misbehave on public roads.
As a rule of thumb, the companies demur apology for any inconvenience their AVs have caused. They offer scant explanation about how and why the mishap occurred, and little clue of any steps they might take to prevent it happening again.
Instead, they fall back on “Safety First,” their go-to slogan, trusting a couple of words to appease the curious.
Put simply, AV companies’ boilerplate explanation to media inquiries on any mishaps almost always starts with:
“Safety is our highest priority at (AV company’s name), both for people who choose to ride with us and those with whom we share the streets.”
I don’t think that I’m the only reporter growing weary of this liturgy.
Whether it’s robotaxi swept away in a San Antonio flood, an AV “stuck” in and blocking Nashville traffic, a robotaxi chased by workers as it rolls through a construction zone (also in Nashville), or a human driver in a robotaxi hitting a Texas pedestrian, the AV industry’s almost robotic response is “Safety is our top priority.”
The above mishaps are only a handful of examples reported just this April. Every press report quotes the alibi-first “Safety First” marketing slogan.
Of course, “Safety First” is a laudable message. But without specifying whose safety they’re putting first, and without explaining the actions that will make safety happen before the accident happens, the promise rings rather hollow. To paraphrase a classic saying, a slogan is only a slogan, “but a good cigar is a smoke.”
Mistakes, made by computer or human driver, will happen. But the AV industry must beware that with every robotaxi mishap, a public spoon-fed that “Safety First” pablum will be surprised. The media won’t stop asking questions, even as they treat, as not newsworthy, thousands of other human-error traffic incidents.
When you’re pitching perfection, the imperfect is news.
The AV industry should pat itself on the back for selling the message that AVs drive smarter and safer than human drivers. But it has set itself up for disillusionment, among consumers and the media, when it cannot keep its Safety-First promise.
Who said “Safety First” first?
The AV promoters are not the first industry to lean on “Safety First” to deflect corporate responsibility and scapegoat someone else for their products’ dangers. This dodge has applied in the past to workplace safety and in the eternal tension in public safety between pedestrians and vehicles.
In our recent podcast with Peter Norton, historian, associate professor in the Department of Engineering and Society, Univ. of Virginia, Norton explained that the Chicago and Northwestern Railway coined “Safety First” in 1910. The train industry, feeling pressure to curtail injuries and deaths in, on and by railroads, made “safety-first” a public slogan to divert attention from their embarrassing public record.
Safety campaigns went big time, initially in the workplaces, and were then exported to public safety campaigns.
Their message was: Hey, if you were run over by a locomotive, crushed by a stamping machine, or killed by a Model T, it’s too bad you weren’t paying attention.
The two latter industries created fictional characters as fall guys when business interests failed to deliver safety, in workplaces or on public streets.
The rail industry created “Otto Nobetter,” a cartoon factory worker carelessly sawing off his arm. Otto was everywhere on posters on workplace walls. The automotive interest group talked cities into public safety campaigns, introducing “Jay Walker,” a doofus too stupid to know how to cross the street without getting flattened.
Caricatures like Otto Nobetter and Jay Walker foreshadow today’s “nut behind the wheel,” Koopman noted during the podcast.
Safety-First campaigns effectively shifted blame to victims. But, as Koopman stressed, “If victims are the ones holding the bag, you’ve got a problem. They’re incentivized to be safe, but they don’t have a lot of control over the environment.”
Two shiftable views
A crucial lesson from the history “Safety First” is that such a slogan can be a “shiftable concept,” pointed out Norton, as it can be interpreted and politically leveraged by opposing camps.
For example, “Safety First” could be used to justify public restrictions—on behavior as simple as crossing the street—as proven in the early days of the auto industry.
But “Safety First was also flexible enough to provoke objections. As Norton notes, skeptics could retort, “Wait a minute, aren’t motorists the real threat?”
Eventually, the campaign backfired.
In the 1920s, automakers grew alarmed by pushback against the “Safety First” campaign and backed off, according to Norton. “They were very explicit about it, saying that this term is too dangerous for us.”
“Safety First” remained hermetically sealed in a Mason jar in Henry Ford’s sock drawer until, lately, the AV industry cracked it open.
Bottom line
History might not be first in mind for most automotive engineers today. But for autonomous systems designed for the future to be successfully deployed and broadly embraced by the public, a 115-year-old history is instructive. An effort to justify dangerous products by blaming people for using them carelessly will eventually backfire.
Meanwhile, reporters including myself should be advised to stop cutting and pasting the AV industry’s Safey-First messaging every time they report on AV misbehavior.
When robotaxi companies take credit for “safe” AVs that cruise past school buses with active flashing red lights and stop arms, we should be ready with a follow-up question: “How do you reconcile your ‘safety first’ mantra with your ‘safety-afterward’ tap-dance after known incidents?”
If they really mean “safety first,” shouldn’t they—at the very least—agree to pause operations during school hours, as requested by the school district? True to form, they haven’t agreed, and the tech media, true to form, have politely declined to ask why.