Fix Road Safety 2: The Real Secret to Getting Cars to Slow Down

Our approach is Education-Enforcement-Engineering. It should be the opposite.

This is the second in a series of common sense solutions to improve road safety for all. 

Road safety is not difficult to understand. It should be as simple as prioritizing safety over speed. 

When traffic authorities say that safety is complex, it shifts the focus to many potential factors and away from the primary issue of speed.

When safety is viewed as a complex problem, we end up with a three-Es solution: Education, Enforcement and Engineering. 

Unfortunately, most authorities get this backwards. Let’s go through the usual response.

Education: a shared responsibility

When safety is seen as complex and dependent upon many factors, the proposed solution usually falls back on education.

It’s seen as too hard to address all the root causes, so authorities remind road users of their responsibilities. Which very quickly becomes a shared responsibility.

We end up with public service announcements, like the much-ridiculed video of the Richmond RCMP, designed to “remind the public of the shared responsibility of pedestrian safety”. 

(The fact that the RCMP has left this video up on YouTube after widespread condemnation speaks volumes.) 

Enforcement: just get people to obey the rules

After education, authorities shift the emphasis for safety on enforcement. 

There are rules of the road, and so let’s have more mechanisms to ensure compliance. 

More signage, more police, more cameras. 

But a lot of drivers treat speed limits as a suggestion, or 10 km/hour below what they can drive without getting a ticket. 

Drivers know that the probability of getting pulled over by a police officer is low.

We know that there will always be people who do not follow the rules of the road. That’s why there is a three or four second gap after a red light before the cross light turns green. Because we know there is a significant number of drivers who will sail through yellow and even red lights. We’ve designed our traffic signals in recognition that a large number of people will not follow the rules of the road.

Automated enforcement with traffic cameras is a good thing, and we should be doing more of it. But since traffic speed and red light cameras are signposted, they really only work for the few hundred metres between the signage and camera. That can make a dangerous intersection a little less dangerous, but once through that control zone, most drivers simply return to their previous speeds.

Engineering: the last stop should be the first

The last stop on road safety is engineering – road design that slow down cars. In North America, this is often the last resort in road safety. We will see some roads with traffic calming measures, but this is usually restricted to those roads where traffic flow is considered less critical. For roads where traffic flow is the top priority, there is little in the way of traffic calming.   

Now reverse that order

For safety, the priority should be engineering – designing roads that slow cars to a safe speed. 

There are a number of ways to slow down cars. 

• Install flex posts, chicanes and speed bumps. 

• Streamline the approval of new signals or pedestrian crossings, at any location where even one major injury or death of a vulnerable user has taken place (as Toronto Council has just approved).

• Make lanes narrower. Narrow lanes force cars to slow down, to avoid the increased risk of their car colliding with another car or a stationary object. 

When streets are engineered to limit speed, enforcement on those streets becomes much less necessary. 

Drivers travel with the utmost care and concern when there is a risk of getting a scratch or dent in their car. This is the real secret to getting drivers to slow down.

Enforcement on larger streets, where traffic calming is less practical, should be automated. Traffic cameras can reduce collisions by about 20%. 

Education should be a distant third priority. Educate users about upcoming changes in the road network, to help them adapt. But that’s about it.

What’s really our priority?

Let’s have an honest discussion about our road priorities. If our priority is to ensure the smooth flow of traffic or to maximize convenient on-street parking, then safety will take a back seat.

If safety is our priority, start by engineering streets to be safe. Then use automated enforcement on roads where calming is less practical. And other than letting people know about upcoming changes, if education is about “shared responsibility”, we can give it a miss all together.

P.S. we are always happy to hear from readers, but will be unable to respond to any messages until mid-December.