Street Illusions
Imagine a safe street, one you’d feel completely comfortable driving on. Did you envision a straight, long, flat road? Well, that’s what most people think, that the wider and straighter the road is, the safer it is. But our instincts are fooling us.
According to civil engineers, when roads look more dangerous, we drive more carefully and the roads become safer. On the other hand, when roads are built to look like a mini-highway, every instinct in a driver’s body tells us to go fast.
In the last decade or so, a few rogue engineers have been making some streets intentionally more hazardous, narrowing them, reducing visibility, and removing curbs, guard rails, traffic lights, and center lines. Shockingly, research shows those roads have fewer accidents and fewer traffic fatalities.
An example is in a British town called Latton. When they removed the center dividing line from their roads, the average car speed dropped by 8 miles per hour. A Danish city redesigned a major intersection, narrowing the road, removing signs and signals and accidents with injuries dropped 70%.
Meanwhile in North America, some cities are embracing counter-intuitive design principles, like Portland, Oregon, and West Palm Beach, Florida. So what helps a road become safer? More trees. Trees along roadways give the illusion that streets are narrower. Bike lanes painted in the street also make drivers more careful. And curving roads help. A straight road looks like a gun barrel, so drivers drive like bullets. But simply putting an island in the road makes drivers drive more slowly.
According to civil engineers, when roads look more dangerous, we drive more carefully and the roads become safer. On the other hand, when roads are built to look like a mini-highway, every instinct in a driver’s body tells us to go fast.
In the last decade or so, a few rogue engineers have been making some streets intentionally more hazardous, narrowing them, reducing visibility, and removing curbs, guard rails, traffic lights, and center lines. Shockingly, research shows those roads have fewer accidents and fewer traffic fatalities.
An example is in a British town called Latton. When they removed the center dividing line from their roads, the average car speed dropped by 8 miles per hour. A Danish city redesigned a major intersection, narrowing the road, removing signs and signals and accidents with injuries dropped 70%.
Meanwhile in North America, some cities are embracing counter-intuitive design principles, like Portland, Oregon, and West Palm Beach, Florida. So what helps a road become safer? More trees. Trees along roadways give the illusion that streets are narrower. Bike lanes painted in the street also make drivers more careful. And curving roads help. A straight road looks like a gun barrel, so drivers drive like bullets. But simply putting an island in the road makes drivers drive more slowly.
