UK DRIVERS’ SWERVING

IT’S a noble principle from Britain’s seafaring past – in perilous situations, women and children should be saved first. But it seems that in modern

Britain it no longer applies.

For while children would still get preferential treatment, women and men and are now more likely to be seen as having an equal right to survive, a study suggests.

The trend was seen in many developed countries in research into the moral decision-making of more than 2 million people globally. In France, however, women’s lives are still rated as much more important

than those of men.

The research was conducted by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US to help designers create driverless vehicles that can make split-second decisions on what to do before an accident. They created computer simulations where an accident is imminent and the car must opt for one of two potentially fatal options such as swerving towards a couple of people rather than into a

large group.

They used data from the survey that highlighted how morality differs. In a ranking of 117 countries, Britain came 71st in sparing the lives of women, and

34th for saving a child.

The researchers found a less pronounced tendency to favour younger people, rather than the elderly, in what they defined as an “eastern” cluster of countries, including many in Asia.

Lead author Dr Edmond Awad, of the MIT Media Lab, said: “There are three elements people seem to approve of the most. These were that human lives are spared over animals, the lives of many people are spared rather than a few, and preserving the lives of the young rather than the old.

“The main preferences were to some degree universally agreed. But the degree to which they agree… varies among… groups or countries.” The study, the Moral Machine Experiment,

is in the journal Nature.