chaos = cooperation

check out this wired article on the new wave in road construction.

no, seriously, it's fascinating. a clip:

The [traffic] circle is remarkable for what it doesn't contain: signs or signals telling drivers how fast to go, who has the right-of-way, or how to behave. There are no lane markers or curbs separating street and sidewalk, so it's unclear exactly where the car zone ends and the pedestrian zone begins. To an approaching driver, the intersection is utterly ambiguous - and that's the point.

well, the point is that eliminating top-down driving rules makes drivers more cautious, use their own judgment, and allows them to create their own norms for driving etiquette. evidence given suggests that this indeed makes roads safe and less congested.

the article criticizes the "old ways" of civil engineering – the days of the 5-lane highway - and instead advocates for more smaller, slower roads which strike me as similar to the kind that may have emerged spontaneously. government is said to make travel more organized and therefore safer, but perhaps those two concepts are not always linked.

it's worth noting that homes are still being taken every day for these road projects based on an old model of driver psychology, which may actually worsen the problem they're meant to cure.

one lingering question i have is how they enforce safe driving without rules - do they forgo preemptive enforcement, or is it subjective based on the officer's judgment of safe driving?

hat tip to reihan. title shamelessly stolen from subtitle in the article. i’m not that clever.

Labels: well being