Removing street signs, lights and arrows increases safety and road capacity

In becoming a "native" Boston driver, I have noticed that not all drivers pay equal attention. In other places I have lived, the attention that other drivers paid was not as obvious, because roads were straight and everyone was a "good" (rigid rule obeying) driver most of the time. The roads here are twisty, bumpy, often full of holes, merge in odd manners, have roundabouts, unconventional signs, and generally more difficult to drive. Yet I seem to see fewer road-side accidents on the roads that I drive every day.

Drivers new to the area see narrow lanes (more frequent lane violations), reduced traffic control (fewer clear opportunities to change lanes or turn), and faster drivers as chaotic and aggressive. It is also scary for tourists to cross the street in the midst of this apparent chaos (you'll see natives walking right through). So you might say that Boston has been in this sort of traffic chaos for a rather long time, and it has never been significantly more dangerous in reality (certainly in perception). I can only conclude that drivers who rely on a rigid rule-set have difficulty in unexpected situations, but when the exceptional is unexceptional, they will develop a more sophisticated model.

The net benefit of signs might not be to increase safety, but to allow for lazier, more distracted drivers. Some signs are generally helpful (construction / traffic / drawbridge ahead ), but I would like to see a general reduction. People are smart, and only do what is required. We can tell them not to talk on the phone or "drive distracted" with little effect. Give them a couple of (hopefully temporarily) bad experiences while they are not paying attention, and they will certainly pay more attention all the time.

EDIT: I should also point out that many people refuse to drive in Boston, making the driving population more self-selective than other cities. I don't think that this is a problem, but as society becomes more reliant on driving it becomes one. People who do not drive here can still get around by means of the subway, cabs, or plain walking (Boston isn't geographically large). I can't say the same of most other American cities.

I don't think it's temporary in the sense that everything goes nicely for the first year and then everyone gets back to normal and accidents increase again.

I think that once you're sloshing through flocks of living people with your car and never get a chance to actually clear your way and speed up over 10-20km/h, I suspect that you will always become alert whenever you hit that area.

Conversely, walking around in an area where there are 1.5 ton blocks of moving metal without ever getting a chance to actually become absorbed in your thoughts and ignore the environment that you're in all together, you'll certainly feel less secure because you never know what's coming next and from where.

Because there's no "known" in the equation and speeds are forcibly slow, people are both more careful and more able to stop their vehicles before anything happens.

I would much rather someone trying to make a U turn thinking “Is this safe?” vs. “What does the sign say?”

On the other hand, it makes me consider (but doesn't remotely convince me of) the possibility that all of Boston's rotaries maybe aren't the dumbest road designs possible.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-is-worlds-roa...

Not so great of an example.

The model is like every classic "We turned up the lights and people became more productive. And then we turned down the lights and they became more productive. And then..." It's flawed.

The result is that the cycling lanes become very dangerous, because car use them for short term parking all the time (it is not unusual to have a parking car every 100 meters). That would mean cycling around the car and hitting the normal road. I think it is safer to just stay on the road all the time, rather than cycle in and out.

The parking on the cycling lane is actually illegal, but people don't care. Sometimes I consider just calling the police for every car that parks there, but I suspect they wouldn't really bother.

What I usually do is cycling without hands on the handlebars. This keeps the cars at a much safer distance.

I didn't expect to see a bunch of Japanese labels on the maps of these German towns, though... :)

A year after the change, the results of this “extreme makeover” were striking: Not only had congestion decreased in the intersection—buses spent less time waiting to get through, for example—but there were half as many accidents, even though total car traffic was up by a third. Students from a local engineering college who studied the intersection reported that both drivers and, unusually, cyclists were using signals—of the electronic or hand variety—more often. They also found, in surveys, that residents, despite the measurable increase in safety, perceived the place to be more dangerous. This was music to Monderman’s ears. If they had not felt less secure, he said, he “would have changed it immediately.”

That the locals who know the roads perceived the intersection as more dangerous indicates to me there's something more than "people familiar with roads don't need signs."

And of course, routine and automatization are a grave danger for any driver. Especially at the roads where the conditions are constantly changing. Traffic signs would just provide a false sense of security.