Vox Explainers considers how we could design safer streets… by getting rid of street signs? Hmm, we’ll have to be convinced about this. The Guardian ran a longer op ed about the “shared space” concept earlier:
Research has shown that removing white lines induces uncertainty and thus cuts vehicle speeds by 13%. This has been the case on London’s A22, A23 and A100. Pilot schemes are also in place in Wiltshire, Derby, and round the Queen’s house at Sandringham (don’t ask).
Behind this demarking lies the concept of “shared space” and “naked streets”, developed in the 1990s by the late Dutch engineer, Hans Monderman. He held that traffic was safest when road users were “self-policing” and streets were cleared of controlling clutter. His innovations, now adopted in some 400 towns across Europe, have led to dramatic falls in accidents. Yet for some reason Monderman’s ideas remain starkly uninfluential in the world of “big” health and safety, especially in Britain.
Monderman’s principle is that freedom to assess risk for ourselves is what makes us safer. Rules, controls, signs, traffic lights all reduce our awareness of our surroundings and thus our sense of danger. On roads, he said: “When you don’t exactly know who has right of way, you tend to seek eye contact with other road users. You automatically reduce your speed … and take greater care.”
Monderman’s British apostle, John Adams of University College London, once suggested I drove on to a motorway, got up to the speed limit and removed my seatbelt. What did I do next? He was right. I slammed on the brake. I swiftly adjusted my threshold of acceptable risk. Adams has figures to prove that countries – indeed US states – that do not require motorbike helmets have fewer biking accidents than those that do.
The most dangerous place on a road is at traffic lights. Almost half the accidents in most cities occur at lights. This is due not just to war between “amber gamblers” and reckless cyclists. A crossing is where everyone should be watching everyone else, but everyone is watching the lights. They are awaiting orders. When given them, they assume all is safe and crash on.