You've reminded me that there's a five-way intersection next to Uni Graz. Some years ago they basically removed all traffic signals and most signs, basically ceding the whole area to priority for pedestrians. When I first came across it the apparent chaos was a little concerning but after walking through that place on more than one occasion I was surprised how well it worked. I've not actually been to that part of town in some time, so now I wonder if it's still like that.

I'm not sure that would work in many, much less every intersection but it really made me stop and question what sort of unrecognised assumptions I had about traffic safety. This stuff is important and I think there's way to many rules and practices that are in place because of assumptions that got made back in the dawn of time... it's likely that they're not correct now but it's even possible that they were never really correct. We need evidence based policies and not so-called common wisdom.