Information Technology Hits the Automobile? Rethinking Road Traffic as Social Interaction
Oskar Juhlin · 2021
Drivers fall asleep and smash head-on with an oncoming car. Wild attempts at overtaking become fatal. Cars, roads and traffic as components seem to fit well into the vocabulary of the emergent research field devoted to the study of Large Technical Systems where a distinction is made between vehicle unit, operation and network. It is apparent from May&s;s and Kronborg&s;s discussion that the people are unable to understand the operation of traffic simply by studying the activities of a traffic control center. The new technology would then start to play an active role in automobile driving. Thus, three paths or trajectories are visible for drivers&s; integration in road traffic as a cultural system, depending on different foundations for its social order: autonomous driving, centrally dependent driving and locally dependent driving. The application of Dannefer&s;s classification of different forms of operation opens up a discussion concerning the impact of cooperative driving on the configuration of the road transport system.