Everything we know about traffic-calming is wrong
Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
Velvet wrote:
It's not just about driving too close to the car in front, there's
always the idiot that swerves into your path as an oncoming, or the
one that pulls out right in front from the side junction *despite*
the fact that you saw him look at (or was it *through* you)...
Oh really, I didn't know that, only having had a driving licence for 20
years...
Different premises. What ABS is designed to do is prevent the wheels
locking, allowing you to maintain control when braking. As an aside it also
helps to ensure that hammering the brakes doesn't end up in a skid.
So, we can either say "ABS allows you to maintain control when braking",
which is useful, or we can say "ABS lets you stop quicker" which is a
dangerous oversimplification of a secondary benefit and risks causing
precisely the kind of risk copensation observed in those German taxi
drivers.
If we go down the road of saying risk compensation nullifies the
safety aspects, then that has to be applied to absolutely everything
else.
It depends on the extent of the compensatry behaviour. A key part of
minimising that is sending out the right messages about the capabilities of
the device.
You really do need to read Risk.
Going back to the traffic calming though - if you can put in place (or
remove) measures that make people *think* more about the situation
rather than putting their faith in the fact that the lines on the road
mean they must be able to fit their vehicle down it regardless - AND
that can be proven to result in a safer environment all around, then
it's worth doing.
Undoubtedly.
By removing all signage and lines, I'm sure there would be a lot of
drivers who would feel too confused and intimidated to drive ever
again. This could be good, but consider that those who stick it out
and succeed in driving successfully in that sort of environment will
be those who already have a tendancy to intimidate other drivers into
giving way to them, letting them pass, and taking any other sort of
action to avoid an accident that would otherwise result.
I wonder why, then, when this has been tried, the result has been a
reduction in speeds and a substantial reduction in crashes?
--
Velvet
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