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Learning (Not) To Trust Mirrors
Mirrors are a common feature of Tokyo's narrow streets, a way of spotting not only oncoming vehicles but more often than not to avoid hitting cyclists coming the wrong way up a one-way street. Bicycles have it pretty easy here in Japan compared to, well, pretty much everywhere I've traveled and it's fairly common for example, that police ignore cyclists running a red light. As a newcomer here it took a while to learn what you could see in the mirror and what was missing, but now a back-street ride to the office is not complete without using street mirrors to see what lies ahead. And there in lies a potential conundrum.
There are a myriad of strategies and technologies that can help us avoid collisions in our daily travels, and with an increasing number of (GPS enabled) location aware mobile phones these options will only increase. What are the consequences of not looking at the road ahead, but instead relying on a filtered view of the road ahead?
Now think about what information could be overlaid on your journey. Would you drive differently if you were made aware that an oncoming car had a 'baby on board'? Or driving through a neighbourhood's narrow street your vehicle sensed youngsters playing nearby? Or that your feed of insurance company data highlights an accident trouble spot on the route ahead?
And given all this, who is motivated and by what reasons to manipulate your driving and navigating behaviours by re-filtering the data on which you base your decisions?
Pottering with K around Sangenjaya today, leaving the station we walked behind a PSP playing kid who negotiated the entire route from his seat on the train, through the crowded platform, up the stairs, through ticket barriers, up to ground level all without interrupting his two-handed game play. What is already achievable indeed.
Writing from Omotesando, back of | June 11, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
Hi.
I usually see your blog.
How did you turn up to do what you do? I often question myself about that.
I live in Portugal.
I find very interesting what you do, the way you question and reinterpret what seems to be the banality of daily routine life, like a documentary-intimate-global-diary.
ana
Posted by: ana pereira at June 11, 2006 8:46 PM
> banality of daily routine life
One person's banality is another person's exotic, no?
How about you share something very ordinary and local from your life in Portugal. I'm pretty sure I will find it exotic.
Posted by: Jan at June 11, 2006 11:23 PM
Wow, the mirrors are great. I know they do that in some buildings here in NYC but this is the first time I have seen it for cars on the road.
I grew up in Nepal and we have roads that are cut on to the side of the hills there, so when you make the turns you can't see the cars or bike coming from the other side. So everyone just honks every turn so singnal that they are on the other side. Still though, sometimes it is dangerous b/c of the buses that travel at faster speed.
They should put large ones on the side of those road on the hill in Nepal too.
Posted by: Sujan at June 12, 2006 1:12 PM