If you want proof, read this. Link

Perhaps in those communities in which the no rules situation works, people are ignoring the rules and driving recklessly (which is my experience from driving in Europe). Taking away the rules increases caution and, perhaps, lowers recklessness sufficiently that it’s actually better than the status quo.

In other words, my reaction may be less about psychology and more about the situation on the ground.

And the reaction of some of us? “This can’t work, this doesn’t work, it’s crazy.” This is astonishing close-mindedness.

Yet all of us have had the experience of driving somewhere without the usual rules… In improvised parking lots, perhaps, or when traffic lights go out in a power failure. Do people start playing bumper cars, or speeding? Never.

Simplistically retarded. Nature tolerate a lot of things and many instances of mistakes. It doesn’t tolerate organisms committing suicide every time they get a chance. That organism’s DNA template and entire line gets edited out soon enough.

On a related topic, anyone who has driven outside the US knows how superior traffic circles are to stop lights in many situations. Sitting at a red light waiting on non-existent cross traffic is one of the supreme idiocies of modern life.

BTW, my own experience with France is that the parking is more of a problem than the driving. In some places, people don’t use parking brakes so that other drivers can bump into a space. I’ve even seen people parked across corners at 45-degree angles to the crossing streets. And once when taken by a friend to a Paris bistro for an after-work drink, we were directed to his favorite table. Why favorite? The large window gave the best view of parkers on a side street as they maneuvered into spaces large enough for a baby carriage. Vive la difference:

Of course, crappy little towns from one end of the country to the other live off the traffic fines (oh no, there are no quotas - of course not), but I don’t see that as a real positive, either.

What they’re doing, at least on the highways, is just making “official” what happens anyway: people generally drive to what the main traffic flow is doing, whether it’s with or somewhat opposed to what the sign says or not. When Montana was limitless on the highways there was no particular upsurge in accidents - though the crappy litle towns were starving to death, so political pressure was put on to bring limits back, which they eventually did - but certainly not for any reasons of safety. Or even logic.

I think what works best is to improve drivers, not rules or roads. In England it used to take several months to get a full license, the ‘Learner” stage went on for a while. None of this “drive around the block and park it - you pass” kind of nonsense. You had to have demonstrated that you actually could handle the car, and could actually have a thought now and then to be fully licensed.

As the article points out, the accident rate in the Netherlands actually went down - what’s the problem?

We lost power out here a couple of weeks ago, and all the traffic lights in town were out. Not a problem, everyone slowed at lights, took it in turn, and the whole thing was fine. This wasn’t a fluke, either, it went on for about three days. I see no reason for it not to have gone on indefinitely. Seattle, my nearest big city, is the only place I know of that says: ‘Use your damn head,” and allows lefts on red as well as rights - no problem.

People can, for the most part, be made to function - if they’re presented with no alternative. Germany, like England, makes you work to get a license, they’ll probably be fine in Bohmte.

The professed reason was that by removing all distracting rules signage, you force everyone to drive more defensively.

Time will tell if this works.

L O L

Sincerely
john