When More Vulnerable Means More Safer

There's an urban planner movement in America that originated in Europe whereby once dangerous intersections are made safer not by increasing lines and signs but by decreasing them.  This counterintuitive action can make sense if you think of two parallel situations.  One is with motorcycle helmets.  While I advocate that riders wear them, I buy the argument that some of those who want to ride without helmets make.  They say sometimes by wearing a helmet, a rider can subconsciously forget to be safe in riding.  Whereas a helmet-less rider is much more aware (even if the awareness is subconscious, if that makes sense) to be careful while behind the wheel.

 

Another example is the typical street scene in Asia.  Cars, scooters, horses, and pedestrians whizzing by, criss-crossing one another, some quite wobbly by Western standards, and yet hardly any accidents, even though it appears no one is really looking out for the others.  And yet, subconsciously, they are.  Cars are smaller and will get wrecked easily, scooters offer no protection, and pedestrians and those pulling animals are most vulnerable.  So they make sure to not do anything really stupid, because they know they could get hit and possibly killed.  Contrast that to the big SUV's and crash-tested cars driven in more developed nations.  We have ceded our need to be careful, and accidents ensue.

 

So back to the urban planning thing.  When you approach an intersection with lots of lines and signs, you may actually be more prone to unsafe driving patterns.  Because the contrast is an intersection with few or no lines and signs, before which you'd slow down because you realize that who goes first and who's going where needs to be negotiated at the intersection between all the people arriving there, since it isn't being negotiated for you by lines, signs, and lights.  And I buy this line of thinking, paradoxical as it might sound.  The more vulnerable you are, the more safely you'll behave.