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This sort of "chaotic-order" does indeed look impressive, and I've personally been mesmerised, just watching busy intersections in India or the Philippines. Bu

This sort of "chaotic-order" does indeed look impressive, and I've personally been mesmerised, just watching busy intersections in India or the Philippines. But it's important to remember that despite all the skills these drivers exhibit every day, the number of traffic deaths under such circumstances is off the charts. Meanwhile, those boring roads in western countries have gotten saver by a cool order of magnitude. See this chart: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USA_annual_VMT_vs_deaths_per_VMT.png#/media/File:USA_annual_VMT_vs_deaths_per_VMT.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USA_annual_VMT_vs_de... It's actually quite a testament to the functioning of the American society over the last 50 years or so that they've been able to cut the number of traffic deaths by 90%, even though traffic has gotten a lot worse. I quite like it as an example, because it didn't just require technological progress. It also included a political component (seatbelt laws, principles for save road construction etc), and cultural changes (drunk driving...).

wenc 9y ago
I agree. It's a systems effect. I see this phenomenon manifest in other areas of life too. Whenever you have a good system with average actors vs a bad system with some outstanding actors, the former usually wins in the long run. Good systems scale better and are more sustainable. In the traffic case, the average skill of the drivers in Brazil is arguably higher than in America (they can maneuver into spots that Americans won't even try to, and drive at much shorter braking distances without getting into accidents), but the traffic fatality rate there is also a lot higher. I've also noticed this in the corporate world. Big companies with good management but average employees tend to stick around for a long time (I won't name names, but a lot of people who work at big companies are decidedly mediocre). Companies with bad management but better-than-average employees tend to get into a lot of trouble. (cf. Uber) You want to have good systems and good actors, but when it is only possible to choose one, choosing the good system usually works well.
lozenge 9y ago
> they've been able to cut the number of traffic deaths by 90%, even though traffic has gotten a lot worse. The graph shows deaths per billion miles. It looks like the number of deaths has remained constant even though traffic has gotten worse.

wenc 9y ago

I agree. It's a systems effect. I see this phenomenon manifest in other areas of life too. Whenever you have a good system with average actors vs a bad system with some outstanding actors, the former usually wins in the long run. Good systems scale better and are more sustainable. In the traffic case, the average skill of the drivers in Brazil is arguably higher than in America (they can maneuver into spots that Americans won't even try to, and drive at much shorter braking distances without getting into accidents), but the traffic fatality rate there is also a lot higher. I've also noticed this in the corporate world. Big companies with good management but average employees tend to stick around for a long time (I won't name names, but a lot of people who work at big companies are decidedly mediocre). Companies with bad management but better-than-average employees tend to get into a lot of trouble. (cf. Uber) You want to have good systems and good actors, but when it is only possible to choose one, choosing the good system usually works well.

lozenge 9y ago

> they've been able to cut the number of traffic deaths by 90%, even though traffic has gotten a lot worse. The graph shows deaths per billion miles. It looks like the number of deaths has remained constant even though traffic has gotten worse.