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IMO these findings that roads are safer without markings, or by being narrower are because drivers have a heightened level of attention and focus when they enco
by gregatragenet3 11y ago
IMO these findings that roads are safer without markings, or by being narrower are because drivers have a heightened level of attention and focus when they encounter something unexpected. When they are widespread and commonplace the accident rate will go past that of wide/marked roads. For a fair comparison, if you compared a country with wide/marked streets to a country where narrow/unmarked streets are commonplace (Mexico for example) you'd find marked/wide is much safer.
- sixhobbits 11y agoEveryone who believes that correlation = causation eventually ends up dead.
- 0xcde4c3db 11y agoI suspect that there would also be some negative effect of consistently increasing the cognitive load associated with driving, as opposed to looking at performance on specific roads on which a given driver probably only spends a small portion of their total drive time. At some point, I would expect the detriment of mental fatigue to outstrip the benefit of "forcing" people to pay attention.
- jakub_g 11y agoWhen I drive and see a huge truck driving at high speed from the opposite direction, I tell myself "just keep your lane, he will keep his lane too, and it will be fine" (and I probably unconsciously slow down a bit). Without the lanes I'd probably feel a bit less comfortable. On the other hand: having visited a number of EU countries, IMO the UK seems to have 2-3x more clutter on the roads (lanes, texts for drivers and pedestrians and what not) than any other of them. They have texts everywhere!
- seasoup 11y agoFeeling less comfortable is exactly the point :)
- saulrh 11y agoThis is an interesting idea. Maybe we should be looking at this as an optimization problem where drivers have a limited budget for attention and we want to concentrate it in the parts where it's most useful by varying the quality of UI assists?
- ricardobeat 11y ago> When they are widespread and commonplace the accident rate will go past that of wide/marked roads. Widespread or not, the lack of rules still forces drivers to be more aware of their surroundings. Drivers are not going to start speeding through junctions because they are used to it, the risks remain the same. As an anecdote, the Netherlands has unmarked crossings everywhere and one of the lowest rates of road accidents. > For a fair comparison, if you compared a country with wide/marked streets to a country where narrow/unmarked streets are commonplace (Mexico for example) you'd find marked/wide is much safer. That assumption doesn't hold any water. It is nearly impossible to make that kind of comparison due to the amount of factors involved - fleet composition and age, skill and education, driver attitude and behaviour, pavement quality, speeds, etc, etc.
- DanBC 11y agoThe Netherlands also has priority for pedestrians and bicycles everywhere. That's different from the UK, where many car drivers feel the road is entirely theirs and anyone else shouldn't be on the road.
- dazc 11y ago> That's different from the UK, where many car drivers feel the road is entirely theirs and anyone else shouldn't be on the road. I'm not sure what happens elsewhere but in the UK we pay a vehicle tax (or excise duty), colloquially known as 'road tax'. It's a common (misguided) belief that the roads are funded exclusively via this tax, hence the sense of entitlement. Ref: Is there any such thing as 'road tax'? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23694438 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23694438
- ktRolster 11y agoWhen I was in the Netherlands, my coworker literally would hurry into the crosswalk to force cars to stop. When we questioned him about it, he said, "They have to stop. It's the law!" My Polish coworker and I were not so anxious to enforce the law with our bodies.
- jschwartzi 11y ago
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- myNXTact 11y agoA while back I read a study that agreed with your assertion. It examined intersections that had traffic lights removed. They found that in the short term, accident rates went down but after some time passed the accident rates shot back up. The authors theorized that the temporary reduction was due to the novelty of the change. Edit: typo
- Terr_ 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_effect
- legulere 11y agoThe problem actually often is that there's not enough happening for your brain to stay focused. That's also the reason why in Germany roads aren't built straight.
- yason 11y agoWhat is safe for the motorist is generally unsafe for bicycles and pedestrians. Like well-marked wide lanes where you can mindlessly zoom forward with no disruptions. That's the traffic engineer's definition of "road safety". And that does indeed apply nicely to highways which are roads that only motorists are admitted to. Yet in a city such a "zoom lane" is the direct opposite of what you want. You want trees around, people walking and crossing, bicycles eating up part of the lane, cars parked and cars passing way too close, sudden surprises, and very active, observant, and careful drivers.
- aaronchall 11y ago"When they are widespread and commonplace the accident rate will go past that of wide/marked roads." Do you have a study to cite on this?