Yeah, let’s do this!
Controlled Chaos: European Cities Do Away with Traffic Signs – International – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News — This is essentially the way traffic is in China, Mexico, parts of the Middle East and India. On the freeway in China you’ll find huge buses along with racing sports cars, donkey carts, pedestrians and bicycles. There are few lane dividers and traffic crosses over to the other side of a six lane freeway commonly. You may as well name these highways “blood alley.” This proves to me that as a whole the EU has gone clinically insane. The Swiss, a country that refused to join these idiots, will end up taking over the place.
Are streets without traffic signs conceivable? Seven cities and regions in Europe are giving it a try — with good results.
Drachten in the Netherlands has gotten rid of 16 of its traffic light crossings and converted the other two to roundabouts. Drachten in the Netherlands has gotten rid of 16 of its traffic light crossings and converted the other two to roundabouts.
“We reject every form of legislation,” the Russian aristocrat and “father of anarchism” Mikhail Bakunin once thundered. The czar banished him to Siberia. But now it seems his ideas are being rediscovered.
European traffic planners are dreaming of streets free of rules and directives. They want drivers and pedestrians to interact in a free and humane way, as brethren — by means of friendly gestures, nods of the head and eye contact, without the harassment of prohibitions, restrictions and warning signs.
A project implemented by the European Union is currently seeing seven cities and regions clear-cutting their forest of traffic signs. Ejby, in Denmark, is participating in the experiment, as are Ipswich in England and the Belgian town of Ostende.
Suunds like places to avoid, if you ask me.
I am convinced that this is a mechanism for population control. Totally insane.
I’ve have been on the freeways through Shanghai, and out into the Chinese country side. There are lots of traffic signs. But most are simply ignored. What’s interesting is that despite drivers going well over the posted speed limit, passing on the right, passing on the median, passing on the shoulder, etc, most traffic gets by. Interestingly, most drivers used their signal lights to indicate lane changes, and used their horns to indicate when passing a slower vehicle on its blind side.
As the European cities – they’ve over-regulated their traffic. Signs say things like “no left turn, 6:30am-9:30am, 3:00pm-6:00pm, buses only, except for taxis, bicycles, car-pools”. or “Bus lane (or right turns) or motorcycles, bicycles”
In my city (Vancouver) there are often “no left turn” signs at major downtown intersections. But at the minor intersection (at the next block) there are no restrictions, so traffic bypasses the major intersection and causes a major road-block at the next intersection.
Ever tried to park in San Francisco or New York? Does anybody understand what the parking restriction signs mean?
At first glance I can see why one would think this is insanity and I certainly wouldnt want to deal with it personally. But if you take a moment and think about it, the idea may be more about responibility than anything, when driving your are responsible. We are a society of reminders, warnings and laws, to force us into being responsible, maybe this is an attempt to make the person responsible without this constant nagging and handholding. As we get more of this in the U.S. we will become a society of the immature.
Having said that, I certainly would want to ease into this rather than dive.
Good grief, someone still quotes Bakunin?
My favorite – “The world will be at peace when the last king is strangled with the guts of the last priest.”
Well at least we avoid silliness such as I saw once on a freeway in Canada: a 120 km/h speed limit sign, followed by “Next exit 300 yds.”
I agree with Bob – making people responsible for their actions seems a good way to stop the ludicrous featherbedding rampant in some countries lately. And the cops here (Spain) are far more tolerant than in many other countries. My girlfriend parks every day outside her bar, which involves ignoring a no entry sign, two no parking signs and a pedestrian area. Since this causes absolutely no problem for anyone, nothing happens (of course, giving the cops occasional free coffees may have something to do with it…)
I agree: Avoid Europe at all costs.
It’s the classic “Finally I can drive the way I wanted to! But… it’s no fun if there are no rules to break…”
For rational planning, look no further than Curitiba .
I’d like a lot fewer signs, it isn’t possible to read them all. Often not even possible to work out which one is important.
But doing without all of them! I’d like to hope it will work
Of course it would be asking too much of the European Commission to co-ordinate this experiment with those cities thinking of banning cars…
I never quite understood why the Yanks hate Europe so much. Is it jealousy? Inferiority complex? Or mere narrow-mindedness?
Yeah, yeah, bitch all you want about “stupid” Europeans. Just keep in mind it is in the same Europe they have freeways with no speed limits, unlike in the US where the speed detectors are outlawed in some states and in others the laws so convoluted that a judge can do what he/she wishes.
This will never work in America. Most of the drivers here don’t pay attention to what they are doing as it is. Take away the rules and you will have more accidents and dead pedestrians.
This plan actually works very well in the test areas, and works very well in low-density residential areas with a stong community fabric. It will never work in any big city, though.
It could save a lot of fuel. Instead of stopping traffic on every block in small towns just so they can look at the merchants windows displays, which seems to be popular in Michigan, let the flow determine the pattern. Maybe build a new park with all the money saved by not buying a new traffic light every time there is a surplus.
Heh…
Unless traveling somewhere new, who pays attention to road signs?
I remember more than once feeling I was going to die in the back seat of a cab during the three days I spent in Malta. I also liked the concept of half-width lanes from my time in east Africa.
11. You’re probably referring to James Hills’ comment. WARNING! Do not take his comments as anything but pure bullshit. Do not make eye contact or encourage him in any way. Remember he is from Salt Lake City.
nuff said.
#1: Otherwise known as social Darwinism. See the Darwin Awards for details.
The EU commission is THE center of applied idiocy, worldwide.
Show me ONE of their “directives” that is sane and I’ll owe you a beer.
My favorite still is their attempt to force people working outdoor
(beergarden maids, farmers and bricklayers alike) to wear sun-protective gear by law (of course, combined with regulations how employers would have to proceed.)
It failed, but the fact that they dared to go public with such weird ideas shows what a bunch of idiots you have there.
Roundabouts are actually very good traffic control mechanisms. I lived (and drove) in New Zealand several years ago and I think the system of roundabouts work very well there. You only have two rules to follow:
1. Give way to traffic already on the roundabout
2. Give way to traffic coming from your right.
Also, they claim that collisions in roundabouts are usually less severe than the normal four-way intersections as they do not involve head-on or front-to-side impacts.
I think this is entirely feasible. As far as I’m concerned round-abouts are one of the best things ever. This would never work in america, most american drivers struggle with round abouts. If you took away all the signs telling them what to do they’d probably drive into a tree and file a lawsuit because there wasn’t a sign to tell them not to. I spent a summer overseas in europe and north africa where the laws are much more relaxed and never once saw a car accident. This won’t be too much of a change for many europeans, it’s just removing the laws they already didn’t pay attention to.
All they are talking about is getting rid of traffic lights and signs, not doing away with the rules. If you think about it, the lights and signs are local amendments to the rules, but now there are so many of them that you effectively have a different set of rules for each intersection.
On another note I don’t know why the Swiss are held up as an example of sanity. I lived in Basel a few years ago and they have a seven way intersection where three tram lines also meet, and the traffic lights are only switched on during rush hour. They also have the craziest give way rules. Give way to the right, but they drive on the right. This means that the rules for roundabouts are reversed, give way to the left.
#22 Ditto.
In my European country rules are only scrupulously followed when there’s a Cop in sight… 🙂
Roundabouts are the cheapest, best form of traffic control, but they’ll never work in the US, simply because of the “Give way to traffic on the right” rule. This means that you must give way to traffic actually entering the roundabout, if you’re already on it. I’ve personally seen it cause some really “interesting” moments on the very few roundabouts we have left in New Jersey (and even these are gradually being phased out in favour of traffic lights — slowing down traffic immensely).
One of the great things about roundabouts is that you still have the option of putting lights on the larger ones, and they still work perfectly safely when the lights fail. They do this in the UK on busy motorway junction roundabouts. In the US if the lights fail at an intersection you’re taking your life in your hands until they can get a cop on the scene to direct the flow.
Except, of course for this one…
http://www.swindonweb.com/life/lifemagi0.htm
Some time ago there was a Wired article about the traffic planner Hans Mondermann. Contrary to the SPIEGEL article it was mentioned that his ideas were already 5 -6 times duplicated in other towns with very good results and in 2005 if I remember right, delegations from several US cities visited with the target to implement it in their own towns.
Bottom line: Whatever bureaucratic traffic planning invented in the last 50 years: it didn’t work. Inhabitable cities, continued traffic jams, lots of accidents and general (traffic) confusion.
It’s a good step to break conditioning. You actually have to look at/think about/judge a traffic situation. And execute a sound decision. Results are as other posters already said: less accidents which also tend to be lighter. Less traffic jams and: less fines!
While some may shake their head about this European foolishness, city planners in a town near you are probably ready with proposals to introduce the same.
Working the last 20 years in Asian and African cities I can assure you that it works to put trust in the drivers. … and the new (old) system will even tolerate the few ones who can’t cope with their new freedom.
Here’s the Wired/Mondermann story link:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html
It does seem counter-intuitive and I was skeptical when I read it, but the article won me over. At one point the writer mentions an instance where Mondermann turned his back to traffic and calmly walked backward into the street without looking. Try surviving that in Chicago or New York!
in similar tests, in city centre streets they removed traffic flow signage, pedestrain barriers, the white lines on the road … and accident rates and injuries plummetted.
it’s the psychology of risk aversion … when the road looks safe and regulated, drivers do not concentrate and drive too fast … make the road look tricky, and you prevent accidents.
20 – My favorite still is their attempt to force people working outdoor…
to wear sun-protective gear by law …the fact that they dared to go public with such weird ideas shows what a bunch of idiots you have there.
And yet in the U.S. we have state after state requiring motorcycle riders to wear helmets, auto drivers and passengers to wear seat belts, and even children on bicycles to wear helmets. Whatever you think of those laws or the rationale behind them, you have to admit it’s not so different from making people outdoors wear sunscreen.
#18 – But… I’m surrounded by Mormons… and they’re no fun.
#11 – I’m always shocked how easy it is to get Europeans defensive about their part of the world. Now that’s an inferiority complex.