Redefining Risks

and Redistributing
Responsibilities:

Building Networks
to Increase
Automobile Safety

(Jameson M. Wetmore)
Introduction
• Purpose of the article: “Illustrate how technical design has been used to promote or
maintain duties, values, and ethics” (p. 377)
• Bruno Latour and Actor-network theory
• Morally desirable: depend on interaction between humans and technologies (network
human/nonhuman)
• Duties, values and ethics can be delegated to a nonhuman through technological design.
• Safety technologies were promoted, developed, and maintained by the networks of
organizations, individuals, and other technologies.

• Author illustrate ways in which human actor are ultimately responsible for “responsible”
artifacts.
Definition of Risk
• Who controlled definition => constructing solution and distribution of responsibilities
• Agreement in driver, vehicle and road are components that need to be examined in the problem of
deaths on the highway.
• Disagreements about the role each should play, and which is ultimately responsible for injuries and
fatalities.
Distribution of responsibilities
• Resulting => largely centred on defining the nature of the risks of automobile travel.
• Risks definition depends on technological networks evolve (Hilgartner, 1992)
• Responsibility => logical consequence between the nature of the problem, a workable
solution, and the allocation of responsibilities.
• Author analyse two relevant episodes to illustrate how who controlled risk definition (1960s
and mid-1990).
• Disagreed about capabilities of both automotive technology and American motorists.
• Criticism about strategies to increase automotive safety.
• Many of the proposed solutions involved changes in or additions to the responsibilities.
Distribution of responsibilities
• Resulting => largely centred on defining the nature of the risks of automobile travel.
• Risks definition depends on technological networks evolve (Hilgartner, 1992)
• Responsibility => logical consequence between the nature of the problem, a workable
solution, and the allocation of responsibilities.
• Author analyse two relevant episodes –in the history of automobile safety in the US- to
illustrate how who controlled risk definition (1960s and mid-1990).
• Disagreed about capabilities of both automotive technology and American motorists.
• Criticism about strategies to increase automotive safety.
• Many of the proposed solutions involved changes in or additions to the responsibilities.
Two episodes analyzed:
• The 1960s => transition from crash avoidance approach to crash worthiness approach
• Shift in the conception of automobile risk.
• Negotiation about ways to redistribute responsibilities amongst themselves and drivers.
• U.S. Congress to create a federal agency charged with overseeing automobile safety and
dedicated to stablishing vehicle safety standards.
• Technology has been characterized as much more attainable than reliable motorists.
• Mid-1990s => airbags problem
• Response to the “failure” of an artifact designed to compensate for human irresponsibility
• Creation to technologies to promote auto safety has trumped, with independence of the
analysis to the actions of motorists
First episode: “Crash avoidance”
approach
• 1800 (automobile was introduced in the United States)
• 1950s : Safe drive = collision-free drive
• Conception of risk: ), Risk exist “when a vehicle collided with something else”.
• Responsible to avoid collisions: drivers.
• Three systems -the driver, the road, and the vehicle:
• If working together, automobile collisions could be eliminated, and safety would be assured.
• Regulation, education, enforcement
• organizations worked to make these three components behave as they were supposed to.
• Interested in increasing automobile safety: argues driver is extremely difficult to regulate.
First episode: “Crash-worthiness”
approach
• Developed in the 1940s and 1950s.
• “Crash avoidance” approach => limited view of safety because it focused only on events that
happened before automobiles collided.
• Direct risk: “second collision”: ”impact of automobile occupants with the parts of car or pavement.
• First collision: the impact between cars and outside objects was not the immediate cause of injuries.
• Primary benefit: new strategies to solution of the problem.

• Responsible to avoid collisions: Automobile industry => redesigning the interior and structure of
automobiles.
• Campaign for people that advocated this approach.
• Risk and responsibilities should be allocated
First episode: “Crash-worthiness”
approach
SHIFTING TASKS FROM THE DRIVER TO THE VEHICLE
• Changes in automobile as the most important and effective way to solve the traffic safety problem.
• automobiles could provide a great deal of protection in collisions if they were equipped with new
technologies.
• “Fixing the driver” had neither changed driving habits
• Efforts to get drivers to accept the responsibilities had failed and would very likely continue to fail.
• View about the driver was an enormous problem
• technology should be developed to compensate for the shortcomings of the public.
First episode: “Crash-worthiness”
approach
SHIFTING TASKS FROM THE DRIVER TO THE VEHICLE
• 3 major reasons because did not immediately adopt this approach
• Changing required a major theoretical shift
• Extremely expensive
• Reluctance to accept changes in liability (would be implies costly litigation)

QUESTIONING THE AUTO INDUSTRY’S CHARACTER

• Summer of 1966: New federal agency (the National Highway Safety Bureau NHSB).
• To increase automotive safety
• To establish minimum safety standards for automobiles sold in the United States (crashworthy standards)
First episode: “Crash-worthiness”
approach