[D66] 'Unsafe is safe'

[A.O.]

(Eens, maak het verkeer zo gevaarlijk mogelijk. Wie wel eens in
Mexico-Stad auto heeft gereden weet dat je dan pas veilig bent omdat je
moet opletten...Lees het boek van Dieleman maar over zijn ervaringen:
https://www.scriptum.nl/boeken/maskers-machos-manantildea/)

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A Modest, Counterintuitive Example :
Red Light Removal

The regulation of daily life is so ubiquitous and so embedded
in our routines and expectations as to pass virtually unnoticed.
Take the example of traffic lights at intersections. Invented in
the United States after World War I, the traffic light substi
tuted the judgment of the traffic engineer for the mutual give­
and-take that had prevaUed historically between pedestrians,
carts, motor vehicles, and bicycles. Its purpose was to prevent
accidents by imposing an engineered scheme of coordination.
More than occasionally, the result has been the scene in Neu­
brandenburg with which I opened the book: scores of people
waiting patiently for the light to change when it was perfectly
apparent there was no traffic whatever. They were suspending
their independent judgment out of habit, or perhaps out of a
civic fear of the ultimate consequences of exercising it against
the prevaUing electronic legal order.
What would happen if there were no electronic order at
the intersection, and motorists and pedestrians had to exer­
cise their independent judgment ? Since 1 999, beginning in
the city of Drachten, the Netherlands, this supposition has
been put to the test with stunning results, leading to a wave of
"red light removal" schemes across Europe and in the United
States.4 Both the reasoning behind this small policy initiative
and its results are, I believe, diagnostic for other, more far­
reaching efforts to craft institutions that enlarge the scope for
independent judgment and expand capacities.
Hans Moderman, the counterintuitive traffic engineer who
first suggested the removal of a red light in Drachten in 2003,
went on to promote the concept of"shared space," which took
hold quickly in Europe. He began with the observation that,
when an electrical faUure incapacitated traffic lights, the result
was improved flow rather than congestion. As an experiment,
he replaced the busiest traffic-light intersection in Drachten,
handling 22,000 cars a day, with a traffic circle, an extended
cycle path, and a pedestrian area. In the two years following
the removal of the traffic light, the number of accidents plum­
meted to only two, compared with thirty-six crashes in the
four years prior. Traffic moves more briskly through the inter­
section when all drivers know they must be alert and use their
common sense, while backups and the road rage associated
with them have virtually disappeared. Monderman likened it
to skaters in a crowded ice rink who manage successfully to
tailor their movements to those of the other skaters. He also
believed that an excess of signage led drivers to take their eyes
off the road, and actually contributed to making junctions less
safe.
Red light removal can, I believe, be seen as a modest training
exercise in responsible driving and civic courtesy. Monderman
was not against traffic lights in principle, he simply did not
find any in Drach ten that were truly useful in terms of safety,
improving traffic flow, and lessening pollution. The traffic
circle seems dangerous : and that is the point. He argued that
when "motorists are made more wary about how they drive,
they behave more carefully; and the statistics on "post-traffic
light" accidents bear him out. Having to share the road with
other users, and having no imperative coordination imposed
by traffic lights, the context virtually requires alertness - an
alertness abetted by the law, which, in the case of an accident
where blame is hard to determine, presumptively blames the
"strongest" (i.e., blames the car driver rather than the bicyclist,
and the bicyclist rather than the pedestrian.)
The shared space concept of traffic management relies on
the intelligence, good sense, and attentive observation of driv­
ers, bicyclists, and pedestrians. At the same time, it arguably,
in its small way, actually expands the skills and capacity of
drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians to negotiate traffic without
being treated like automata by thickets of imperative signs
(G ermany alone has 648 valid traffic symbols, which accu­
mulate as one approaches a town) and signals. Monderman
believed that the more numerous the prescriptions, the more
it impelled drivers to seek the maximum advantage within the
rules: speeding up between signals, beating the light, avoid­
ing all unprescribed courtesies. Drivers had learned to run the
maze of prescriptions to their maximum advantage. Without
go ing overboard about its world-shaking significance, Moder­
man's innovation does make a palpable contribution to the
gross human product.
The effect of what was a paradigm shift in traffic manage­
ment was euphoria. Small towns in the Netherlands put up
one sign boasting that they were "Free of Traffic Signs" ( Ver­
keersbordvrij), and a conference discussing the new philoso­
phy proclaimed "Unsafe is safe."


--Two Cheers for for Anarchism
Six Easy Pieces
on Autonomy,
Dignity,
and Meaningful
Work and Play
JAMES C. SCOTT
Princeton University Press
Princeton & Oxford