▲ | emn13 5 days ago | ||||||||||||||||
You might interpret that clearly true statement in two different ways: - That it's not feasible to incorporate this style of traffic design elsewhere since cultures differ - That we need to consider how traffic engineering (eventually) shapes user behavior. I'm convinced the second one is the one that quite quickly is much more predictive of outcomes. These Dutch-style intersections make the safe behavior natural and intuitive, and habits will adapt quickly where they're used _consistently._ To be explicit: the whole point of road design like this is that it does _not_ rely a lot on training users on details of the rules of the road. In fact, precisely those remaining quirks (e.g. scenarios when traffic approaching on-road white yield triangles nevertheless has the right of way in the Netherlands) are the exceptional vestigial weakness that proves just how obvious the rest is. Of course, if every town picks it's own patterns to follow, that's going to be less predictable for road users, and thus frustrating and ultimately dangerous. | |||||||||||||||||
▲ | dr_dshiv 5 days ago | parent [-] | ||||||||||||||||
One of my favorite moves is when the Dutch simply don’t provide any guidance whatsoever in certain intersections. No signs. Brick or stone paving. It really works! "When you don't exactly know who has right of way, you tend to seek eye contact with other road users. You automatically reduce your speed, you have contact with other people and you take greater care." | |||||||||||||||||
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