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Comment by NohatCoder | Hacker News Reader

So, if you make one special road intersection that breaks all the rules of how road intersections normally work people will slow down and pay extra attention. If you make a million of them people will get used to them and/or they will get tired of paying all that extra attention. The cost of going slower all the time will add up, so people will go back to going fast.

All of this means that an experiment of one intersection doesn't necessarily tell us anything useful about the results of a broader implementation.

The article even does mention places with less traffic regulation that serve as much better test beds, and then waves away the obvious conclusion.

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To backpedal just a little, I take offence at the simple conclusion, that removing lines, signs and lights will make things better. If you read a bit closer most of the experiments are a bit more nuanced, for instance "a traffic circle, an extended cycle path, and a pedestrian area". It seems that in the famous experiment Monderman actually did add a fair amount of paint to the asphalt.

Also, bad paint is worse than no paint, in particular dividing the road into more lanes than there is room for.

Well if you look at thr pictures/Videos it's not really more paint it's just that he created shared space. In other words he put all different road users more closely together without obvious separations. This is much in line with research which shows that bike paths are much safer when put on the road than when put together with footpaths off the road.

This very much aligns with my (admittedly anecdotal) evidence. I find riding on the road is typically much safer than riding on a bike path on the side of the road (like the typical German ones). On the road you are in the way so drivers pay attention to you, if you are on a bike path next to he road, cars will overlook you at the next intersection). That said completely separate paths with minimal intersection with cars are obviously even better.

> This is much in line with research which shows that bike paths are much safer when put on the road than when put together with footpaths off the road.

Please share - this seems in opposition to all the other research I’ve seen that proximity between cars and bikes (esp with even painted bike lanes) is more dangerous for cyclists than separate lanes.

well, that is completely opposite to my experience. on or next to the road i have to constantly pay attention to traffic. every moment a car could get to close and scrape me or worse. away from the road i can ride much more relaxed. only at intersections i need to watch out for traffic.

I mean, what is the difference between this proposal and what happens in overcrowded cities in third world countries? I'm pretty sure this approach does not increase safety in those countries.

Other countries have confounding factors, like the fact that they are driving less safe vehicles generally.

It’s called the “Hawthorne Effect”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

With that said one easier way to increase road safety is to reduce the width of lanes since people drive fast proportionally to the size of the lane, not the speed limit.

> The cost of going slower all the time will add up, so people will go back to going fast.

Interesting hypothesis but where is the evidence? I can think of country-wide counter examples such as the UK (among the safest roads in the world) where they've been removing central line markings on country roads for years in the name of safety. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/04/remova...

this makes me chuckle - sorry for the tabloid link: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/britains-weirdest-road...

I'm a great beliver in getting rid of most traffic lights when its less busy - say by just having a flashing amber light, meaning its a free for all

I read a psychology study a long while back (might be able to find it idk) that I think would agree with this line of thinking but with a slightly different mechanism.

The paper argued that we have an internal risk level that we like to drive at, regardless of speed limit. Speeds higher than that risk level feel dangerous and are avoided. Speeds lower than that risk level are basically too boring and the task is not stimulating so you speed up. That risk level is individual dependent, hence some people like to speed more than others.

In this context, one weird “lawless” intersection is a novelty that requires attention and is likely perceived as riskier since it is unfamiliar. However, if all intersections were like that, they become normal and people will face them more aggressively.

Which is why you need to engineer to a target maximum speed. The article kind of glosses over this but a big thing is that the intersection was also converted to a roundabout, which if you take too fast you’ll just wind up crashing into the side or the center.

A lot of American speeding happens because engineers apply Interstate-like design standards to local roads and then are surprised by interstate speeds.

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