this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2024
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There's some areas in the Netherlands and Germany where they removed all signage, traffic lights and sidewalks to create an open, shared traffic area where all participants need to be careful, alert, and communicate with each other to determine right of way and avoid accidents.
The idea was to create uncertainty about who gets to go first and force drivers to slow down.
It reduced the number of accidents and injuries.
Somehow I think this wouldn't work in the US.
We have this in my town. Ambiguous zones. The idea is it creates confusion, and slows traffic. However, in my state, pedestrians have right of way on ALL roads. So the car simply slows. Mostly.
I live in Washington, and people just walk into the road as if it was nothing. People be like "pedestrians have the right away", but they forget that the rule of tonnage still applies.
They did something similar in a big refurbishment of the town centre of the place I grew up in (in the UK). No road markings, roads and pavements both done with Belgian blocks, and just some big stone bollards to separate the pedestrians and traffic. Turns out drivers kept hitting the bollards so now they all have hi-vis reflective strips on them. Which definitely did not grant me much confidence in the driving skills of my town.
In my town they replaced the metal bollards with bendy rubber ones to reduce accidents that cause damage.
But 1 in 4 or 5 bollards is still metal, and looks just like the others from a distance.
I can only assume it's to keep drivers from just running over the bendy ones.
This suprised me when I read Killed by a Traffic Engineer. But in hindsight it makes sense. The road is not a regular, never-gone-wrong place despite our best effort to make it looks like one
As a us citizen I can’t speak for everyone but I feel like the majority of drivers are responsible enough for it to work with only a few zooming BMWs
Meanwhile I’d probably hold up traffic because if I feel like I can’t make a decision with 100% certainty on the road I don’t execute, better safe than sorry
I may be over exaggerating a bit but mostly with stuff like unprotected left turn and matters that aren’t time sensitive and I have time to analyze I feel like if I have to ask myself “can I make this” and usually the answers no if I’m even asking
It has made me look like an idiot at some blinking yellows but it’s better than being t boned
Thank you for coming to my ramble
I feel this would work in some areas in the US, i.e. smaller towns, possibly in the residential areas of larger cities. But in rush hour type areas? Hell no, it would be a massacre after people got used to these spaces.
Yeah and despite this it feels like it's normal in like India and so on. I would not last 10 minutes in their traffic. 😱
Do you have more information about this? I would love to read more.
This is a good starting point:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space