How "road safety" makes us less safe

[Blind_Io]

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/traffic

There is a stretch of North Glebe Road, in Arlington, Virginia, that epitomizes the American approach to road safety. It’s a sloping curve, beginning on a four-lane divided highway and running down to Chain Bridge, on the Potomac River. Most drivers, absent a speed limit, would probably take the curve at 30 or 35 mph in good weather. But it has a 25-mph speed limit, vigorously enforced. As you approach the curve, a sign with flashing lights suggests slowing further, to 15 mph. A little later, another sign makes the same suggestion. Great! the neighborhood’s more cautious residents might think. » We’re being protected. But I believe policies like this in fact make us all less safe.

I grew up in Great Britain, and over the past five years I’ve split my time between England and the United States. I’ve long found driving in the U.S. to be both annoying and boring. Annoying because of lots of unnecessary waits at stop signs and stoplights, and because of the need to obsess over speed when not waiting. Boring, scenery apart, because to avoid speeding tickets, I feel compelled to set the cruise control on long trips, driving at the same mind-numbing rate, regardless of road conditions.

Relatively recently—these things take a remarkably long time to sink in—I began to notice something else. Often when I return to the U.S. (usually to a suburban area in North Carolina’s Research Triangle), I see a fender bender or two within a few days. Yet I almost never see accidents in the U.K.

This surprised me, since the roads I drive here are generally wider, better marked, and less crowded than in the parts of England that I know best. And so I came to reflect on the mundane details of traffic-control policies in Great Britain and the United States. And I began to think that the American system of traffic control, with its many signs and stops, and with its specific rules tailored to every bend in the road, has had the unintended consequence of causing more accidents than it prevents. Paradoxically, almost every new sign put up in the U.S. probably makes drivers a little safer on the stretch of road it guards. But collectively, the forests of signs along American roadways, and the multitude of rules to look out for, are quite deadly.

Economists and ecologists sometimes speak of the “tragedy of the commons”—the way rational individual actions can collectively reduce the common good when resources are limited. How this applies to traffic safety may not be obvious. It’s easy to understand that although it pays the selfish herdsman to add one more sheep to common grazing land, the result may be overgrazing, and less for everyone. But what is the limited resource, the commons, in the case of driving? It’s attention. Attending to a sign competes with attending to the road. The more you look for signs, for police, and at your speedometer, the less attentive you will be to traffic conditions. The limits on attention are much more severe than most people imagine. And it takes only a momentary lapse, at the wrong time, to cause a serious accident.

Smeed’s Law, or Why Safety Measures Don’t Improve Safety

What matters most for road safety? The quality of the roads themselves? The engineering of the cars that travel them? The speed limit? The answer may be “none of the above.” In 1949, a British statistician named R. J. Smeed, who would go on to become the first professor of traffic studies at University College London, proposed a now-eponymous law. Smeed had looked at data on traffic fatalities in many different countries, over many years. He found that deaths per year could be predicted fairly accurately by a formula that involved just two factors: the number of people and the number of cars. The physicist Freeman Dyson, who during World War II had worked for Smeed in the Operational Research Section of the Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command, noted the marvelous simplicity of Smeed’s formula, writing in Technology Review in November 2006: “It is remarkable that the number of deaths does not depend strongly on the size of the country, the quality of the roads, the rules and regulations governing traffic, or the safety equipment installed in cars.” As a result of his research, Smeed developed a fatalistic view of traffic safety, Dyson wrote.

Smeed’s Law has worked less well since the mid-1960s; traffic deaths have been somewhat reduced by engineering features such as seat belts and air bags. But technical improvements generally matter less than you might expect, because they affect driver behavior. It’s called “risk compensation”: as cars become safer, drivers tend to take more risks. Psychological factors, in other words, appear to play a huge role in road safety, and they often undercut well-intentioned safety initiatives.

I’ve spent my professional life studying adaptive behavior—how changes in the environment lead to changes in the ways humans and animals act. I’d contend that as traffic signs have proliferated in the U.S., drivers have adapted in profoundly unhealthy ways. We may imagine that driver training is something that happens to 16-year-olds in small cars labeled studentdriver. But of course we spend a lifetime on the roads after we get our licenses, and we’re being trained by our experiences every day. Let’s think about what drivers are actually learning on the roads in America.

Consider the stop sign. It seems innocuous enough; we do need to stop from time to time. But think about how the signs are actually set up and used. For one thing, there’s the placement of the signs—off to the side of the road, often amid trees, parked cars, and other road signs; rarely right in front of the driver, where he or she should be looking. Then there’s the sheer number of them. They sit at almost every intersection in most American neighborhoods. In some, every intersection seems to have a four-way stop. Stop signs are costly to drivers and bad for the environment: stop/start driving uses more gas, and vehicles pollute most when starting up from rest. More to the point, however, the overabundance of stop signs teaches drivers to be less observant of cross traffic and to exercise less judgment when driving—instead, they look for signs and drive according to what the signs tell them to do.

The four-way stop deserves special recognition as a masterpiece of counterproductive public-safety efforts. Where should the driver look? What must he remember? State driving manuals can be surprisingly coy about exactly what drivers should do at four-way stops. The North Carolina Driver’s Handbook, for example, doesn’t mention four-ways as a separate category at all. Yahoo Answers imparts the following wisdom: “The rules for a four-way stop are like those for a two-way: Stop and look for oncoming traffic, and proceed when it is safe to do so.” So far so good, but then: “You may occasionally arrive at a four-way stop sign at the same time as another driver. In such cases the driver to the right has the right of way. However, not all drivers know this. If someone to your left decides to go first, let them!” Thanks! But remind me: aside from bewildering the driver, what’s the point of stopping traffic in all four directions?

The four-way stop weakens the force of all stop signs by muddling the main question drivers need to answer, namely: Which road has priority? And indeed, American drivers have apparently become confused enough by this question that some communities are now beginning to affix another sign to the poles of stop signs that aren’t four-way, warning cross traffic does not stop.

Speed limits in the U.S. are perhaps a more severe safety hazard than stop signs. In many places, they change too frequently—sometimes every few hundred yards—once again training drivers to look for signs, not at the road. What’s more, many speed limits in the U.S. are set in arbitrary and irrational ways. An eight-lane interstate can have a limit of 50 to 70 mph or more. What makes the difference? A necessarily imperfect guess at probable traffic conditions. The road may sometimes be busy—so the limit is set low. But sometimes the road is not busy, and the safe speed is then much higher than the limit.

A particularly vexing aspect of the U.S. policy is that speed limits seem to be enforced more when speeding is safe. As a colleague once pointed out, “An empty highway on a sunny day? You’re dead meat!” A more systematic effort to train drivers to ignore road conditions can hardly be imagined. By training drivers to drive according to the signs rather than their judgment in great conditions, the American system also subtly encourages them to rely on the signs rather than judgment in poor conditions, when merely following the signs would be dangerous.

Which brings me back to North Glebe Road in Arlington. It turns out that the speed signs do perform an important safety function: in wet weather, many drivers had taken the curve too fast; traffic authorities have substantially reduced accidents on the curve by adding the 15-mph warning sign, and they would be foolish to remove it, absent larger changes in American traffic policy. But this is emblematic of the sort of signage arms race that has become necessary in the U.S. When you’ve trained people to drive according to the signs, you need to keep adding more signs to tell them exactly when and in what fashion they need to adjust their behavior. Otherwise, drivers may see no reason why they should slow down on a curve in the rain.

So what am I suggesting—abolishing signs and rules? A traffic free-for-all? Actually, I wouldn’t be the first to suggest that. A few European towns and neighborhoods—Drachten in Holland, fashionable Kensington High Street in London, Prince Charles’s village of Poundbury, and a few others—have even gone ahead and tried it. They’ve taken the apparently drastic step of eliminating traffic control more or less completely in a few high-traffic and pedestrian-dense areas. The intention is to create environments in which everyone is more focused, more cautious, and more considerate. Stop signs, stoplights, even sidewalks are mostly gone. The results, by all accounts, have been excellent: pedestrian accidents have been reduced by 40 percent or more in some places, and traffic flows no more slowly than before. What I propose is more modest: the adoption of something like the British traffic system, which is free of many of the problems that plague American roads. One British alternative to the stop sign is just a dashed line on the pavement, right in front of the driver. It actually means “yield,” not “stop”; it tells the driver which road has the right of way. Another alternative is the roundabout. Roundabouts in the U.S. are typically large. But as drivers get used to them—as they have in the U.K. over the past three or four decades—they can be made smaller and smaller. A “mini-roundabout” in the U.K. is essentially just a large white dot in the middle of the intersection. In this form, it amounts to no more than an instruction to give way to traffic coming from the right (that would be the left over here, of course, since the Brits drive on the left).

[LurkerPatrol]

Yikes... uh... mind spacing out the paragraphs a little bit there bro? Eyes are starting to hurt (but thats most likely because of lack of sleep)

Consider the stop sign. It seems innocuous enough; we do need to stop from time to time. But think about how the signs are actually set up and used. For one thing, there’s the placement of the signs—off to the side of the road, often amid trees, parked cars, and other road signs; rarely right in front of the driver, where he or she should be looking.

How hard is it to see a stop sign? You should be able to see it from miles away. Is he trying to give the impression that drivers are retarded people that just stare at the sidewalk continuously for stop and speed limit signs? A place where you need to stop has usually a "stop" painted on the ground right next to the sign. Even if its among other signs/objects its a bright red octagonal sign... what other sign is red and octagonal with white text that says "stop" on it. It can't be that easy as this person claims to be to miss a stop sign. I'm also assuming that when he says 'right in front of the driver' he means on the buffer separating the 2 sides of the road? Hopefully not right in front of the driver's face....

I never look at speed limit signs that often on freeways. I always just follow the flow of traffic. Same thing for the city as well. I don't see how they "hurt" drivers if there's no traffic. Is it that hard to obey the speed limit? Is it really that hard to maintain a constant speed (ish) with your foot?

Traffic accidents aren't caused by the signs... they're caused by ignorance and negligence.

[airmenair]

I thought the U.K. was the one who had problems with over regulation of traffic. Or at least that's the impression I got.

[RoamingGnome]

While I would agree with the author on principle of overburdening the driver with far too many rules, in my experience he's got it completely backwards with regards to the number of signs on the US vs EU roads.

I too drive often on both continents and when in Europe, my eyes are about ready to pop from road signs every few yards or so. There seems to be a sign for just about any possible activity. Everywhere.

I find that in the US, if anything the signs seem to be arbitrary and many if not a majority of them simply spelled out. I pity those who can't read English, it is a nightmare. Then again catering to the international tourist was never the strength of the US. The STOP signs, yeah, they're everywhere, necessary or not, often hindering traffic big time.

But as for accident rate difference, I call total BS. Personally I've seen just as few here as there.

Driving long stretches in the US is boring. To be able to drive at say 120 vs 70-80mph, not fearing the stupid cops would be very nice, cheaper and likely just as safe, though honestly, really no less boring. Roads are wide, smooth and predominately straight. Try driving thru Kansas or Nebraska at whatever speed and not fall asleep. I have more fun driving at 45 thru curvy back roads than I do doing a 100 on the Interstate. That is not to say I would not welcome raising the limits to at least reasonable levels.

[Blind_Io]

Better be careful with those triple-digit speeds, in most states it's a criminal offense (not just a code violation) and you will loose your car and go to jail if caught.

[bafranksbro]

I swear I'm the only one that actually does the speed limit here but I've only had my license a week and a half and I'm already sick of being tailgated every time I want to drive my car. Tailgaters should die and go to hell.

[Eye-Q]

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/traffic
(almost full quote of the article)

So, what's your opinion? You quoted the opinion of a professor of psychology, maybe it's a well written article but it doesn't necessarily has to be your own opinion.

My opinion: four-way stops are indeed ridiculous, here in Germany there are no four-way stops but two-way stops, tops, or even just yield signs, so one road generally has the right of way and the driver on the other road has to stop or yield. That works well (a major road stays in 95% of the cases a major road, unless you come to a T-junction) and if you are on the major road you don't have to stop unless there is a traffic light (which tends to be noticed more likely than a traffic sign).

The most up-to-date statistic I could find is from 2004, there the ratio of killed people per 1 million habitant is 71 for Germany and 145 for the USA.

[sonza68]

Originally Posted by bafranksbro

I swear I'm the only one that actually does the speed limit here but I've only had my license a week and a half and I'm already sick of being tailgated every time I want to drive my car. Tailgaters should die and go to hell.

You may very well be. Most people seem to drive at what they consider a reasonable speed and not pay attention to the posted limit.

Recently they instituted variable speed limits on I-270 here in St. Louis. In the afternoons (maybe mornings too, but not when 'm on the road), the speed limit can drop from its normal 60 to as low as 40. Traffic doesn't seem to care, it flows at 70-75 mph regardless of the current limit. It only slows down when it reaches pockets of congestion, but at those points you're luck to maintain 10 mph.

I've noticed it on I-44 heading out of the city as well. The speed limit starts at 55 and then works its way up to 70 incrementally. The average speed doesn't seem to change much despite the 15 mph limit increase.

[Vector]

I only tailgate if the idiot is doing less than the speed limit. You have no business being on the road if you can't drive the proper speed imo. Take the bus.

[Speedtouch]

Good read I think. And I do agree with him, that over-doing the signs is bad, whereas these pedestrian/road combined areas (much more popular in Holland I think), make the driver need to be expecting the unexpected, not just having the car on cruise control, and sitting back, expecting that car not to pull out in front of you.

[Night_Hawk]

I agree with pretty much everything he says, but that last section of writing even surprised me a bit. I'm surprised some places just gave up on traffic systems all together and became safer, I know what he's saying but I can't picture me just driving around town with no rules at all

[JakeRadden]

Originally Posted by Vector

I only tailgate if the idiot is doing less than the speed limit. You have no business being on the road if you can't drive the proper speed imo. Take the bus.

Agreed.
I try most of the time to just drive in such a way to impede traffic as little as possible. If that means slightly above the speed limit, so be it.
Of course, everyone has to have their... fun time, and in those cases as long as I'm not endangering anyone else I feel pretty free to drive however stupidly I wish to.

[the Interceptor]

Originally Posted by Night_Hawk

I know what he's saying but I can't picture me just driving around town with no rules at all

Well, the point is that there still are the usual traffic rules, but you actually have the time and the concentration to apply to them instead of looking at new signs every few meters of road.

[KaJuN]

That guy's rant reminded me of four things I hate about driving:

The first is the first thing he mentioned: slower speed limits for curves. There seems to be no consistency in the method. Some curves have a suggested speed of 35 when you could easily take it at 55. Yet some have the same suggested speed but you'd be insane to take it that fast.

Another thing he mentioned: needlessly stopping. It really irritates me having to wait for a red light that doesn't let any other cars through. Why did I have to stop and waste time and gas? This is a bit of a double-edged sword though because the lights that prevent that from happening often don't recognize motorcycles so I end up sitting there forever without the light changing.

The third is the lack of speed limit signs in some places. I have driving along wondering what the speed limit is.

The fourth is a little more interesting and it's something I thought of not long ago. When on two lane country roads it's annoying having to slow down or even stop for the car ahead of you to turn left. But one day a courteous driver solved that problem with a maneuver that was totally illegal but I think it should be allowed. He put on his signal and then moved into the empty left lane so as to not make me slow down. I thought it was brilliant! If you're allowed to be in the left lane to pass, why shouldn't you be allowed to go there to let traffic behind you get by more easily?

[prizrak]

Originally Posted by LurkerPatrol

Yikes... uh... mind spacing out the paragraphs a little bit there bro? Eyes are starting to hurt (but thats most likely because of lack of sleep)



How hard is it to see a stop sign? You should be able to see it from miles away. Is he trying to give the impression that drivers are retarded people that just stare at the sidewalk continuously for stop and speed limit signs? A place where you need to stop has usually a "stop" painted on the ground right next to the sign. Even if its among other signs/objects its a bright red octagonal sign... what other sign is red and octagonal with white text that says "stop" on it. It can't be that easy as this person claims to be to miss a stop sign. I'm also assuming that when he says 'right in front of the driver' he means on the buffer separating the 2 sides of the road? Hopefully not right in front of the driver's face....

I never look at speed limit signs that often on freeways. I always just follow the flow of traffic. Same thing for the city as well. I don't see how they "hurt" drivers if there's no traffic. Is it that hard to obey the speed limit? Is it really that hard to maintain a constant speed (ish) with your foot?

Traffic accidents aren't caused by the signs... they're caused by ignorance and negligence.

I got in a car accident on a freshly paved road (no STOP line) and a bus parked on the side blocking the all way stop sign. No way to tell there was a stop there at all, now if they had a flashing red light over the intersection I would have seen it perfectly.

I agree with quite a bit actually, I have never seen anyone stopped for switching lanes constantly in heavy(ish) traffic. The only person I know who got stopped for it was my uncle and the judge basically said it was his right to switch lanes as he pleased as long as he signaled. I have been stopped for going 87 on an absolutely empty stretch of road with excellent visibility in a car that is no harder to control at that speed than it is at 20. Which one is more dangerous?

Also I have noticed that speed limits tend to be mostly self imposed. I have driven around in the dead of the night with very few people on the road doing 20-30 over the limit and being overtaken... by SUV's..... People generally do not go above the speed that they are comfortable with and most people would not be going over 80. Speed limit doesn't exactly stop them from doing that. For instance my mother is TERRIFIED of anything about 60 so she will never go that fast. I have no problem going triple digits and the only reason I don't is that I like my driver's license and the car.

I also see quite a few all way stops and traffic lights here where they really don't need them. The road by my house is NEVER busy, yet there are 2 T intersections with traffic lights on them right next to each other. All they do is make you sit there for no reason.

There are a million different examples of this and I agree a lot of them just slow the traffic down.

[Cobol74]

Trouble is that we are heading in to the over signed, badly thought out world that the writer is highlighting. Rather than the US heading our way we are heading - like in so many other areas - the US way of doing things. I recognise the too many speed limit changes in a short stretch of road, the silly illuminated signs, the forest of traffic signs sometimes contradictory. ...

Still, the US approach to road junctions with the four way stop is something I am happy not to have to tangle with I must say.

[the Interceptor]

Originally Posted by Cobol74

Still, the US approach to road junctions with the four way stop is something I am happy not to have to tangle with I must say.

If I'm not mistaken, such junctions do not exist in Germany, if in Europe at all.

[Eye-Q]

Originally Posted by KaJuN

If you're allowed to be in the left lane to pass, why shouldn't you be allowed to go there to let traffic behind you get by more easily?

If somebody comes from the junction and wants to turn right (thus getting on the left lane seen from you) he/she has to look at both directions if there is some traffic or somebody who wants to turn into the junction. If nobody does what you suggest then the driver from the junction just has to make sure nobody comes from the right and turn straight away.

[KaJuN]

Originally Posted by Eye-Q

If somebody comes from the junction and wants to turn right (thus getting on the left lane seen from you) he/she has to look at both directions if there is some traffic or somebody who wants to turn into the junction. If nobody does what you suggest then the driver from the junction just has to make sure nobody comes from the right and turn straight away.

Ah but we do have to look both ways. People like to cut their turns too tightly and end up going into both lanes after their left turn. One time I was out on my motorcycle and this lady was completely in my lane after turning left onto the road I was on. So if you don't look right you're likely to hit them as they turn too sharply.

[LurkerPatrol]

Originally Posted by prizrak

I got in a car accident on a freshly paved road (no STOP line) and a bus parked on the side blocking the all way stop sign. No way to tell there was a stop there at all, now if they had a flashing red light over the intersection I would have seen it perfectly.

I agree with quite a bit actually, I have never seen anyone stopped for switching lanes constantly in heavy(ish) traffic. The only person I know who got stopped for it was my uncle and the judge basically said it was his right to switch lanes as he pleased as long as he signaled. I have been stopped for going 87 on an absolutely empty stretch of road with excellent visibility in a car that is no harder to control at that speed than it is at 20. Which one is more dangerous?

Also I have noticed that speed limits tend to be mostly self imposed. I have driven around in the dead of the night with very few people on the road doing 20-30 over the limit and being overtaken... by SUV's..... People generally do not go above the speed that they are comfortable with and most people would not be going over 80. Speed limit doesn't exactly stop them from doing that. For instance my mother is TERRIFIED of anything about 60 so she will never go that fast. I have no problem going triple digits and the only reason I don't is that I like my driver's license and the car.

I also see quite a few all way stops and traffic lights here where they really don't need them. The road by my house is NEVER busy, yet there are 2 T intersections with traffic lights on them right next to each other. All they do is make you sit there for no reason.

There are a million different examples of this and I agree a lot of them just slow the traffic down.

I'm with you on the fact that bus stops should never be put so close to a stop sign, that is a definite hazard. The center buffer would probably be the best place to put a stop sign (least intrusive and obstructed place, and closer to the driver's main focus and viewpoint). I'm sorry to hear about your accident, that must not have been a good day .

I was arguing that the writer comes off as saying that all people do while driving is look at signs and not at the road, which I don't think is true. Signs are just something to glance at like the rear view mirror, not to sit there reading it for ages on end and not focus on the road/the car ahead.

I agree with you on the matter of switching lanes, I've never seen anyone get caught for that, it's something that can be easily contested. If you leave a huge gap between you and the cars behind you, however, then that would be more of a problem for you. Cops can't track 1 car among a whole herd of cars all going at nearly the same speed versus someone thats speeding off in the distance far away from the rest of the group he/she's left behind.

I just think the person who wrote this is exaggerating trivial things and has practically no evidence to bolster his arguments. The author says "The four-way stop deserves special recognition as a masterpiece of counterproductive public-safety efforts. Where should the driver look? What must he remember?". Answer: At all sides, and if everything is clear then proceed. His argument that people don't know what to do at 4-ways is asinine. If you arrive at the same time as another person you wave at them or say go on ahead or look to see what they're saying before you proceed, its simple. If it was empty and you proceeded after checking everything was clear and someone runs the stop sign and hits you, that's not your problem, it was the other driver's carelessness.

I don't think signs are a hazard (contrary to this writer's thoughts), they're irreplaceable in my opinion. I can't think of an alternative to alert people of something oncoming (aka stop sign, falling rocks, midget festival etc etc).

I'll shut up now