Removing road signage to save lives? Imagine...

That's what some governments are considering in what's deemed to be a revolutionary move that's considered a new approach that's attempting to make roads safer.

In the UK they previously considered plans to remove white lines from the road because research has suggested that when you do it increases uncertainty in the driver which then makes them slow down.

The concept is founded upon the notion that traffic is safest when users police themselves.

“If you put stripes on the roadway, speed limit signs, stop signs, crosswalks, and tell everybody what to do, then you’ve removed the responsibility from the human beings who are moving around that space,..." - G Toth veteran of the New Jersey Department of Transportation

There are many cities that have turned to consider this option over the years, getting the sign clutter off the roadways to try and make it safer; ironic seeing as these signs were implemented under the guise of encouraging safety.

In the Netherlands and Germany they've also been embracing similar changes and removing road signs or lights in an effort to try and boost road safety and simplify the driving experience. In one town in the Netherlands they conducted an experiment where they had removed all of the traffic lights for all transportation modes and the results were so impressive that they made the change a permanent one.

For some towns it's been working great and they've seen a drastic reduction in accidents. Some leading engineers continue to insist that reducing the signs and traffic lights can help to make the roads safer.

Freedom to assess risk on our own is what makes people drive safer...

When you remove that self-assessment and people instead rely on signs and lines on the road to make their decision for them in a sense, it can easily make things much more dangerous. If traffic lights are removed for example, then instead of sitting at the light and waiting for it to tell you when it's acceptable to go, drivers instead meet in that intersection and will have to negotiate their way through it, by thinking about what to do, making eye contact, or gesturing etc.

As one traffic architect, B Hamilton-Baillie, has previously pointed out in the past, what these signs are doing is essentially treating the driver as if they were an idiot.

People have been found to behave more recklessly when they have an increased sense of safety and once they aren't faced with those signs and lights then they are required to pay more attention to what they are doing.

The most dangerous place on the road is at traffic lights...

Signs, traffic lights, controls, and rules, etc, have been shown to reduce our awareness and make for less safe driving conditions. One Dutch traffic engineer gained fame many years ago after he suggested that all of the speed bumps, curbs, lights and signs etc, had been endangering the very people that they were put in place to supposedly protect.

Reducing the signs and other distractions on the road might help to improve safety and traffic flow, if possible then it's worth investigating.

Drivers often ignore road signs and a great deal of collisions that take place at intersections occur because the driver neglected to pay attention and adhere to the stop sign. When those signs are removed there comes along with that a heightened risk and this pressure has been found to force drivers to pay closer attention, remain on alert as they approach and pass through the intersection.

Let's take the responsibility away from the government and give it back to the people, reduce the unnecessary road clutter. The streets might function better without so much top-down management. And the gradual realization that there might be a better way to go about managing traffic also has implications that extend far beyond the road, it could prompt a growing number to consider the possibility that liberty in various circumstances is the best approach to take.

Pics:
Pixabay

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