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Raymond Heinrich AIA
The Heinrich Team
Madison NJ
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Our Jan 6-15 messages deal with consciousness and behavior, signals, signs and unheeded herding channels. They plead for a paradigm shift in connections between brain science and "traffic"engineering. Added factors include the modern education of school children to expect that cars must stop for them. And also, distain for drivers, those in control of such roadway missiles who are characterized by traffic managers as "the nut that holds the steering wheel". To resolve this syndrome, carmakers propose to replace us with 255 million cars having electronic roadway and vehicle guidance systems within15 years.
Meanwhile, commercial video artists employ subconscious motivation to "send eyeballs to cash registers". This is validated by payment of $4 million for 30 seconds of exposure. These eyeballs are sent out in cars that are guided on roadways by the same subconscious pattern-cognizant brain. Ironically, this cognitive-kinesthetic reaction is shared with all animals as the singular most important system in the brain for survival. Fortunately, there is a unique profession that is dedicated to the safety, health, and well being of people, that combines both engineering and subconscious cognitive control. That is Architecture. It is past time for architects to review R,O,W and roadway collision sites, identify distracting clutter, incorporate subconscious reaction and assert a role in cognitive pattern guidance and research. The Academy for Neuroscience in Architecture (ANFA, a former grantee of the AIA) has coupled with the Salk Institute in San Diego to link brain science and cognition. Except that ANFA has not put it to use on the road.
Meanwhile, visualize if you will, 12 of our largest cities, each containing an occupied World Trade Center and Pentagon. Such to be be explosively obliterated every year. Such losses would equal the current annual loss of life on U.S. roadways. Brain scientists and simulators await. Congressman Freylinghuysen is alerted. NHTSA etc. needs a wake up call. The essence of this issue is not exclusively arteries, pulse and flow, it is mainly of corpuscles. And Architects in urban design need to embrace this paradigm shift. See eye-cue-driver.org for more.