Last year I heard about a town in Europe somewhere which removed its traffic lights at every junction and left it as completely uncontrolled with no signage or rules except don't hit anything or run over anything. Pedestrians motorcycles and cars were all given the same priority which made for no right of ways, every move was based on using a gap or opening to cross the intersection.
Naturally when I first heard about this, I was astounded that they would do this and had images in my mind of mass carnage. But the fact that I never heard anymore about this made me wonder if it had worked.
Having thought about the concept a little bit more since that time, its started to make more sense to me. Driving is one of the most social things we do all day. Whether we know it or not. We share the road with thousands of other road users daily and every action we take on the road usually ends up affecting at least a dozen people. Or in the case of a highway it can end up affecting hundreds. One of the things about cars is that they seem to isolate the driver from the rest of the world. When a driver closes the door to their car, they can tend to get into an observer mindset.
I've had this discussion with many people now. Especially about how drivers often only see other cars on the road, not other people. It's easy to forget that the little hatchback in front of you that's driving so irritatingly slow, could contain a young family with children.
I'm unsure of which town had removed its traffic lights which was my initial interest, however while reading up on the subject, I found a study done in a town called Portishead near Bristol England. Congestion was so bad at a particular junction that there was waits at the light for up to 20 minutes. In an attempt to relieve congestion they turned off the lights. The travel time went from 20 minutes to 5 minutes. It's been stated that the junction when the controls were in place took as many as 1700 cars and 300 pedestrian per hour with excessive delays. After they turned off the lights the junction takes over 2000 cars per hour and still 300 pedestrians with almost no delays. The test was so successful they've permanently removed the traffic signals. Its been running successfully for 8 months now with only 2 minor accidents and no pedestrian injuries.
ONE IMPORTANT NOTE. That is noted in the study is that blind people ignore the intersection, and that their concerns haven't been met yet.
Here's a 2 part video I've found on the subject which features the junction mentioned above.
In the video they only show the intersection after everyone is used to it. I'm curious as to how much adjustment time was necessary to successfully navigate it.
But when we think about this experiment it might be easy to forget that there's a very large population of people who live in areas which do not have traffic controls at every intersection.
Take this video for example.
The video doesn't state where this particular intersection is, however my guess would be Vietnam due to the amount of scooters. I looked up the crash fatalities in Vietnam and compared them to the crash fatalities in the United States. Vietnam actually had less fatalities per 100,000 people than the US did. Vietnam had 394 per 100,000 while the US had 449 per 100,000. In perspective Canada had less than both at 260 deaths per 100,000. These statistics are from the WHO website.
I'm not 100% for getting rid of all traffic signals. However I think it is a very good thing that drivers are forced to look at all aspects before entering an intersection. Drivers use pauses at intersections to concentrate on other things and then once the green light comes up they feel a security in knowing they have the right of way. When the traffic controls are taken away from them suddenly they are responsible for knowing whether they can get through the intersection or not.
Some food for thought.
Drive Safe.
