December 17, 2004

• This isn't that revolutionary, is it? People have been complaining about the false sense of safety in cars for decades now. Roads in Canada and Australia are reputedly engineered with unneccessary bends to stop drivers falling asleep.
• I understand this perception is one thing that contributes to SUVs having higher fatality rates-- they're not inherently more dangerous, but the drivers become complacent.
• Maybe related loosely rodgerd, but this is a change in conventional thought whereby warnign signs makes things safer. I like the idea of pedestrians and cars given equal priority in certain areas. For example when he had the confidence to walk backwards off the pavement/sidewalk without looking. Can you do that on any of the roads nearby?
• This is Donald Norman-style usability for roads. Norman's classic example is the handwritten notes and labels we see on consoles for complex devices - they represent design failures which people are trying to remedy themselves. And more generally, objects that require too many labels etc have poor usability. There's a sort of spectrum from the iPod to my clock-radio... Anyway, in this school of thought the best design is one that takes advantage of natural human behaviour rather than fighting it. To me that's at least as intuitive as signs everywhere. When I was at university, it was often pointed out with great glee that there were no paved paths when the campus was built. Instead, the administration waited until students had worn natural walking paths into the grass - then they paved them. It's a sad reflection of our society that this approach is taken to be ingenuity rather than simply obvious.
• Are there any pictures?
• Seems like this is really a great idea, but one that only scales up so far. Imagine in LA that you have no indication by sign or stripe change that your lane is about to automatically leave the freeway: the sheer number of people swerving over at the last minute would be a sure-fire mortality booster. Now, for roads that serve less than some number N cars per lane per hour: sounds like a great idea.
• Oh, and vitalorganz, I heard they also used that trick at Disneyland. Before laying concrete paths, they watched where the people walked, and after a few months, paved.
• I've seen this in some countries. You think they're driving like maniacs, but after a while you realize you could push a stroller across the street without looking and no one would hit you.
• Sure. I get it. People have been conditioned to look at signs instead of road conditions. Honestly, in places without road signs, I pay more attention to everything else. It does have its limits, however, as I'm still in favor of speed limits, so long as they're intelligently placed.
• I can attest to the effectiveness of new signs and no center line. Many Japanese roads are like this. They're narrow (most places aren't wide enough for two cars), dimly lit or unlit, and often feature large, open concrete pits on both sides of the road. Never before had I paid so much attention to the road.
• Cripes. It's a Roundabout. In Holland; the Planet's second-most orderly country. Easy in a 17th Century town that has burgeoned to all of 40,000 souls. Well... My Heck, as they say. I had more people present than that, just at my deflowering. Like directions are for philistines.
• i always thought that wonerfs were a cool design solution for residential areas.