[D66] 'Unsafe is safe'

[A.O.]

Zo leer je pas echt uitkijken...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH6naRedhP8
Mexico City Loop | Ana Puga
553.100 weergaven
9,9K
Terry Barentsen
Gepubliceerd op 27 jun. 2018
While in CDMX Ana Puga takes me on a chill city loop.


On 26-01-19 11:29, A.O. wrote:
> (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/)
> 
> +++
> 
> 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
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