Good Spontaneous Order News Under a Bad Title
December 7, 2004
3:29 p.m., MT
Another busy day cooking, with good results thus far: I believe I have my wheat-free cheese cracker recipe perfected enough to share (now to find the time to write it out); and a huge turkey is roasting in the oven. (That's what happens 'round here; I tell the gents, "You bring it home and I'll cook it," and they've taken me up on it in spades.)

Just had a couple of minutes to glance at some news headlines, and found a very interesting Wired story on making roads safer. Turns out the way isn't more law, nor more signage, but less "regulation". Here's the idea in a nutshell:

The approach is radically counterintuitive: Build roads that seem dangerous, and they'll be safer.

A longer, more telling extended quote, and more follows ...

Monderman [the designer] and I stand in silence by the side of the road a few minutes, watching the stream of motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians make their way through the circle, a giant concrete mixing bowl of transport. Somehow it all works. The drivers slow to gauge the intentions of crossing bicyclists and walkers. Negotiations over right-of-way are made through fleeting eye contact. Remarkably, traffic moves smoothly around the circle with hardly a brake screeching, horn honking, or obscene gesture. "I love it!" Monderman says at last. "Pedestrians and cyclists used to avoid this place, but now, as you see, the cars look out for the cyclists, the cyclists look out for the pedestrians, and everyone looks out for each other. You can't expect traffic signs and street markings to encourage that sort of behavior. You have to build it into the design of the road."

And one last snippet before I weigh in:

"A wide road with a lot of signs is telling a story," Monderman says. "It's saying, go ahead, don't worry, go as fast as you want, there's no need to pay attention to your surroundings. And that's a very dangerous message."

What he's highlighting is, it seems to me, the sad fact that in most modern societies the state encourages carelessness, through its efforts to prohibit and nanny and such. With driving, the result is particularly harsh, because being a safe, responsible driver requires some degree of active attending to the road and the others using it.

Where I grew up (and I can admit it: when grew up is relevant too), road signs were generally informative and helpful. By that I mean that if a sign indicated a curvy road and a suggested speed, it was usually a slightly conservative estimate for a passenger vehicle in decent condition. Where I now live, the signs serve as overly worried mommies-in-absentia: every little bend in the road merits a sign; and the suggested speeds are laughably low. The result is that no one familiar with the twisty, hilly roads that have abundant blind driveways and odd intersections pays any attention to the warning signage. Where we lived in Wyoming was much different. In much of the town -- including the residential area just off the main streets of "downtown" -- intersections had no stop signs. No "yield" signs either. Accidents were few -- because of the same phenomenon that this Dutch guy has capitalized on. It's called "spontaneous order".

Absent law, or regulation, or somebody (who presumes to have power over another) dictating choices or actions, most individuals are highly capable of civil, productive interaction among themselves. Butler Shaffer has expressed it much better than I probably ever will, in one of my favorite essays by him, titled What is Anarchy?. No wonder the Europeans are slow on the uptake as to the real cause behind "roads gone wild".

Sunni