I went to an interesting talk yesterday by a University of Chicago law professor named Lior Strahilevitz. Lior has a radical proposal about the “How’s My Driving?” stickers that we often see affixed to the back bumpers of trucks.
There is some initial evidence that these placards are “associated with fleet accident reductions ranging from 20 percent to 53 percent.” The idea is that truck drivers who know that they might be reported for driving dangerously are less likely to violate the rules of the road.
If the bumper sticker can help truck drivers, maybe it can help the rest of us too. Lior has proposed “‘How’s My Driving?’ for Everyone (And Everything?)” — a system whereby the government requires all cars to carry such stickers.
Lior’s big idea is to supplement police surveillance with a system of coveillance (where citizens watch each other). The use of “How’s My Driving?” stickers can harness the value of “millions of daily stranger-on-stranger driving observations that presently go to waste.”
In the past, Barry Nalebuff and I have extolled the idea of “black boxes” for cars that would record the car’s speed and whether a seat belt was being used — data that could be downloaded later in the event of an accident. These black boxes are also used in truck fleets and have been shown to reduce accidents — again because drivers drive safer when they know that the black box will later rat them out to their employers.
Road Safety has a black box that parents can use to make sure that their teenagers are driving more safely. This is no joking matter. I have a niece who rolled a car a few years ago and wasn’t wearing a seat belt. Luckily, she walked away without grievous injury, but she probably would have been wearing a safety belt if she knew that a Road Safety box was going to tell on her.
I’m still a fan of Road Safety. But Lior has me thinking that a bumper sticker might get you many of the same benefits at a fraction of the cost. And God bless America: there are now “How’s My Driving?” stickers for teenagers. Check out tell-my-mom.com (howsmydriving.com has a special program for senior drivers as well).
Bumper stickers might also keep your car from getting stolen. The Feds help support a Help End Auto Theft (H.E.A.T) program. You put a special bumper sticker on your car that gives the police advance permission to pull you over if they see your car being driven between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. It’s popular for oldsters (like me) who rarely drive during the wee morning hours.
But Lior’s paper makes me think that the H.E.A.T. program could be even better if the sticker instructed other drivers to call an 800 number if they see this car on the road at inappropriate times.
Of course there are obvious problems concerning both accuracy and privacy when living in a coveillance world. My kids want me to display a “How’s My Parenting?” sticker so that they can call child services on me when I screw up.
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Hasn’t anybody ever read 1984? Do you really want your whereabouts known to authorities all the time? How easy would it be for someone to seek revenge regarding personal matters by making up some reckless driving story?
Here’s a couple scenarios to ponder. Let’s say you sped to avoid an accident. Or you are taking your father to the hospital after a heart attack. Do you really deserve a ticket because your black box ratted you out to the police?
I don’t think the black box should be limited to teens. How about reduced insurance rates if you agree to install a black box on your own car and to make its data available to the insurance company if you’re in an accident. That way you would be putting something in the teen’s car that you already have in yours and can say it’s to make their insurance affordable.
Years ago I saw some comedian who as part of his routine had a bow and arrow where the arrows had suction cups. He said that if you’re driving and someone cuts you off, you shoot the arrow at them. Then if the cops see a car with several arrows on it, they pull him over and give him a ticket for being an idiot.
C’mon people, DriveCam.
Seriously, having this kind of information in the recent MetroLink crash in Chatsworth CA would be invaluable right now. Let alone the fact that you can put this in every car. Close enough to the black box idea for me.
The effectiveness of the stickers is most likely dependent on the relationship between the driver who was reported and the person who ultimately received the report. On trucks, the employer the power to dock the driver’s pay or fire them. A teenage driver can lose their driving privileges or be grounded.
Seniors driving records probably won’t be as responsive to the stickers because there are punitive measures that can be taken. To test this, there would have to be a control to account for people that voluntarily put the sticker on (likely to be a safer driver) versus those where the sticker is a mandatory and enforceable requirement of their driving.
This only works for truck drivers because they can be fired. If someone can call on a normal driver, what is the consequence unless someone is willing to pursue this through the courts? The police cannot just issue a ticket on your say so and expect it to be unchallenged. But, a truck driver who gets a number of calls will likely be fired (if a number of callers, it shows a pattern and not just one nut job trying to cause trouble).
“Jessica, yes it is because the sticker acts as a visible prompt. ”
It won’t work long, as is evident to anyone familiar with GUI design. If you see something everywhere, you become blind to it. That’s why, for example, there is a countdown before you can click “ok” to install an extension on Firefox: because users would install anything if there wasn’t this stratagem.
FYI, you can download a recording of Lior’s talk from UChicago Law’s Faculty Blog at:
http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2007/01/strahilevitz_ho.html or find the podcast on iTunes here: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=263294054