Profile of Hans Monderman, radical traffic engineer
Tom Vanderbilt of the The Wilson Quarterly profiles the recently-departed traffic engineer, Hans Monderman, of the "less is more" school of traffic control.
Vanderbilt is the author of the Freakonomics-style book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us).
In the last few years, however, one traffic engineer did achieve a measure of global celebrity, known, if not exactly by name, then by his ideas. His name was Hans Monderman. The idea that made Monderman, who died of cancer in January at the age of 62, most famous is that traditional traffic safety infrastructure—warning signs, traffic lights, metal railings, curbs, painted lines, speed bumps, and so on—is not only often unnecessary, but can endanger those it is meant to protect.The Traffic Guru (Thanks, Barry!)As I drove with Monderman through the northern Dutch province of Friesland several years ago, he repeatedly pointed out offending traffic signs. “Do you really think that no one would perceive there is a bridge over there?” he might ask, about a sign warning that a bridge was ahead. “Why explain it?” He would follow with a characteristic maxim: “When you treat people like idiots, they’ll behave like idiots.” Eventually he drove me to Makkinga, a small village at whose entrance stood a single sign. It welcomed visitors, noted a 30 kilometer-per-hour speed limit, then added: “Free of Traffic Signs.” This was Monderman humor at its finest: a traffic sign announcing the absence of traffic signs.
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Some of his ideas are starting to fall out of favor. Here in the Twin Cities they no longer paint curb corners to indicate no parking.
The result is more fender benders with parked cars and more traffic/parking enforcement. It's win-win for saving and making money--not so much if you live on a busy street.
I suspect his very sound and reasonable ideas will be superseded by fears about litigation. If you don't have a sign that there is a bridge and I drive my truck off of it, it's the government's fault! Who will protect me from myself?
His ideas are not compatible with a world of transportation that is looking to take more decision-making away from the individual and supplant them with computerized backup information that no longer needs to be stored in one's head. Sure, a person may perceive that there is a bridge up ahead, until they're tired and one or two children are screaming in the back seat and then they're surprised by it. It's good only in theory, but not in practice. My driving patterns after having children are far far more "seat of the pants" than they were when all I drove for was myself or my girlfriend. For instance, a few weeks ago I was in an unfamiliar area and the baby threw up all over the backseat. I needed to immediately find a commercial area where I could get napkins or paper towels. The GPS system is a godsend for that because it relieves my wife from following a map when I drive and lets her deal with the kids when they're unruly. The GPS system means I no longer need to carry maps or read maps and we can just scan the GPS route quickly and let it remind me that a turn is coming up in .2 miles and all I need to do is concentrate on traffic and my car's speed, etc.
Now. If this theorist is suggesting that we remove cluttered traffic signs with car-based navigation and mapping and future display systems so that in 2020 we can make a personal choice to display these signs as overlays then that's reasonable. If he's suggesting that the average driver doesn't need this information or that the average driver is truly capable of devoting 100% of their time to vehicle movement instead of, you know, receiving a call from a dispatcher or talking to their passengers, or answering their child's questions, well he simply is unqualified as a human factors expert and does not reflect what is known about human interaction with traffic- making him a lousy traffic manager.
Another good example was my first experience with walking in New York City. Coming from growing up in a southern city and suburbs, the placement of subway station entrances in storefronts under skyscrapers was completely bizarre to me. I would look for a building in a separated "mall" kind of space, but it would be a small entrance. True that I had seen NYC many times in films, but once I had to navigate it myself, there were no cultural touchstones that prepared me to find facilities located the way they are when space is a premium. Therefore his comment about the bridge is demonstrably false- bridges in NYC appear "out of nowhere" compared to where I grew up where the government would own and clear much green space at the base of the bridge. Our physical spaces are far more different between the city, suburbs and rural areas, between the tropics and the north, between US, Europe, Japan and India, that to suggest that landmarks are internationally obvious and don't require signs is a joke. It's foolish enough that I feel like posting a second time to point out how laughable it is.
It's like taking someone from a village in Indonesia and asking them whether or not you stand to the left or right when riding an escalator. The requirement to let people pass you on the left on an escalator is totally obscure to all but seasoned subway commuters.
He makes a point that the removal of control devices doesn't work completely. Only in areas that are slow and complex, ie. a village center. He is not suggesting this for an interstate highway.
Unfortunately here in the US, folks won't stop watching movies much less slow down. Which is why most new rotaries/roundabouts increase accidents in the short term.
Sure, a person may perceive that there is a bridge up ahead, until they're tired and one or two children are screaming in the back seat and then they're surprised by it.
And what difference does a warning sign make then? I doubt very much, because that's something that person also needs to see, process and then react to. Not that much difference to actually seeing a bridge ahead and reacting to that.
smart people are idiots about understanding idiots are not smart people.
Hrm. Make the area feel unsafe and people will slow down. That's not a bad idea. The illusion of safety almost certainly makes us drive with less caution. All those signs and warnings just reinforce the idea that if there is something scary ahead, it'll be marked. No need to worry.
Here in San Francisco, many of the roads are narrow and feel pretty unsafe. I rarely see anyone speed. Not to mention the people double parking and cyclists everywhere. You have to pay attention at all time (or it feels like you do) in order not to hit anyone.
Takuan, a very concise, in fact a remarkably concise quote detailing in one line what it took me 30 lines to write. You win this round.
Before we could have things like that in the US, we first would need to enforce extremely severe punishments for driving infractions.
Once you manage to get all the slack-jaws and psychos off the roads, THEN you can think about implementing a sign-free system in certain places.
Here in San Francisco, many of the roads are narrow and feel pretty unsafe. I rarely see anyone speed.
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Well in Boston the first part is true (the roads are narrow and complicated) but the second part is totally false (people drive like maniacs anyway and have accidents). So what do you say then? That Boston is actually a city with safe drivers or that there's no causal relationship between driving culture and street safety?
Not sure if that comes out for or against street signs, but I find your argument has no basis in cities with both bad streets and terrible driving. All I know about San Francisco driving anyway I learned from Bullitt and that doesn't appear to reflect your reality.
Once you manage to get all the slack-jaws and psychos off the roads, THEN you can think about implementing a sign-free system in certain places.
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So you're suggesting that all freight be shipped by train then and not by independent truckers?
Congratulations, you have entirely failed to understand anything the guy was saying.
He isn't talking about your bridge in NYC. He's talking about that particular bridge, which was bloody obvious and had no need for a sign, and only has one because some idiot bureaucrat went around putting a sign before every bridge in the area, resulting in a lot of useless signs. When you have a lot of useless signs, nobody can tell which ones are important, so they ignore them all. His whole philosophy is about rejecting blind application of "standard" solutions (traffic lights on every junction, speed bumps on every busy road, warning signs on every corner), and instead figuring out what will work best in a given situation.
And here you are, trying to interpret this as a "standard" solution of not using warning signs, to be blindly applied in every scenario.
I've long thought that traffic could be improved if the planning departments started hiring Fluid Dynamics physicists.
Congratulations, you have entirely failed to understand anything the guy was saying.
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Whoa. I hardly think disagreement is the same as "entirely failed to understand." The good doctor is wrong about that particular bridge too! He bases his belief the bridge is obvious on cultural cues. There is no way that I agree with having subjective measurements for applying highway signs. End of story. Sign laws must be dealt with objectively. He feels they should be culturally subjective and I believe, with an detailed example, that he is wildly wrong. I find your suggesting that my disagreement is from ignorance puerile at best- are you familiar with human factors-based design? I'm knee deep in that right now designing software for an international audience for users in their 50s and 60s (for whom certain computer interfaces are counterintuitive based on age-related cultural issues) and I posted with multiple examples that Dr. Mondermann is making presumptions that are out of place from my experience in reality.
The requirement to let people pass you on the left on an escalator is totally obscure to all but seasoned subway commuters.
Or you just obviously stand on the side that allows people who are not standing to move ahead in a straight path.
Left or right doesn't matter. What matters is paying attention, and even though design bends to the user and not the designer, I can sure as hell understand his desire not to design for the absolute lowest common denominator.
(I really, really hate people who can't manage an escalator.)
Whoa. I hardly think disagreement is the same as "entirely failed to understand." The good doctor is wrong about that particular bridge too! He bases his belief the bridge is obvious on cultural cues.
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If one were so unaware of these "cultural clues", then how would he understand the language and/or picture on the sign?
To #4 Neener:
I think Monderman's response to your example about the Indonesian on the escalator might be that, if he saw several people on the left side hurrying to pass him, he would move right, and would have learned this rule socially rather than by edict.
As for the Boston example, my impression when I lived there was that the drivers were maniacs, but predictably so, and thus not as prone to accidents as they might seem. I could be wrong about that, though; I don't have any statistics on it. And I'm not sure if that contradicts or supports your point; just saying, that's all.
@#11: Boston is actually a _very_ safe place for both pedestrians and drivers. Dense cities are safer because traffic moves more slowly. Slower traffic means less oomph behind your accident. Fatality rate in Massachusetts is about .8 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. It's 2.32 per 100M VMT.
@#14: Traffic engineers do use very, very sophisticated modeling, but the point of responsible traffic planning is _not_ to maximize the number and speed of cars on the road. It's to manage the balance among safety, speed and quality of life for people living adjacent to the road.
Part of the idea of traffic calming is to get cars going under the ~25mph point. Above that speed, most car-pedestrian accidents are fatal for the pedestrian. Below it, most are not life threatening.
The appropriateness of traffic safety measures varies wildly. That's why context sensitive design has gained momentum compared to the rather prescriptive methods you'd find in the MUTCD. In some places, it may make perfect sense to remove all the street signs. In others, it could kill people.
#18: I've driven in most of the 50 states, and I can say easily that people drive faster in Massachusetts than anywhere else I've driven. I'm not sure what is behind your "fatality rate" statistic, but driving slower isn't it.
Pick a major route in Massachusetts.... Even State Rte. 2 from Boston to Western MA, which is narrow, undermaintained, and completely unsafe, and speeds of 80+ MPH are common. At least they are at times when traffic hasn't reduced the average speed to 2-3 MPH.
If I had to guess I'd say that the higher than average income, combined with the zero-tolerance policy towards registering vehicles with body rust or bald tires probably contributes. More people have newer, more expensive, safer cars.
Incidentally, Massachusetts notoriously doesn't mark it's roads well. You know when you enter or leave a town, but beyond that, good luck.
Lastly, and anecdotally, Boston is the only city where I've been rear-ended by cyclists. Riding too fast, on a street too narrow for an escape route... It's happened multiple times. Car shakes, you start to wonder what the hell happened... Then the hand appears on your back window....
frank blackmore, who invented the roundabout, died not long after this guy as well. THE TWO DEATHS MUST BE RELATED.
If the Man starts regulating where you put your vehicles, pretty soon he'll start saying where you can use your GUNS.
I guess I don't understand the bridge issue. When I drive, I stay within marked lanes and the bridges take care of themselves. Never drove off one yet.
One thing that annoys me no end is signs for "BUMP".
So I drive along, on a road that, like most roads, is not perfectly flat anyway, with dips and rises, in anticipation of encountering some sort of roadbed anomaly so uniquely Himalayan in scale that it warrants a sign cautioning me of it, like if I hit it without warning I might go careening off into space.
And miles later I'm wondering "was that it?" "Did I miss it?" "Did I somehow go the wrong way and illegally avoid the mandatory bump?"
At this point, I'm so distracted worrying that maybe this bump is so monumentally huge that they actually do feel the need to warn me 15 mile in advance of it, that I need to relax a little, so I put my iPod on the dash, bottom end facing forward, affording me a "heads-up" view of the screen reflected in the windshield, insert one ear bud (leaving the other ear open to hear the bump-sirens wailing away) and catch up on my TV viewing.
So one ramification of 'no traffic signs' would be more discretion on the part of traffic cops, right? In lieu of 'running a stop sign' they'd give out tickets for things like 'selfish driving.'
We are nothing more than ignorant selfish fools, and if you don't believe that you've forgotten your ride home.
Recently posted this link a few days ago in another thread. I don't know anything about this guy, but I know that less is always more and driving is intuitive in a properly designed environment. By this I mean if I need to think about much more than not running into the car in front of me the road needs some more work.
Effect of Traffic Calming Schemes in Denmark
One thing that absolutely nobody brought up is looking at developing countries where this kind of free for all is pretty much the norm. I remember navigating the gigantic Blok M bus terminal in Jakarta with 50 sliding through the 7 lanes, and people bustling about everywhere... But I've also spent the last two months in India, where there are usually no sidewalks, and the street is a mix of a few cars (who go slow - yes), cows, motorcycles that suddenly beep loudly just behind you and force you to jump out of the way, bicycles, autorickshaws, bicycle rickshaws... The result is that everyone go incredibly slow, there is a cacaphony of noise as everyone is stepping on the horn, and walking down a street is the most harrowing experience. In Indonesia the result of this kind of thing is that there are pretty much no nice retail street were people like to walk, it's all in huge airconditioned malls.
I would much rather walk down a wide delineated sidewalk, thinking about my own concerns, and not worry about whatever goes on outside of that sidewalk.
@23: Thank you. Not only did you say what I was thinking, you've done it with style and grace.
If one were so unaware of these "cultural clues", then how would he understand the language and/or picture on the sign?
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I specifically pointed out an example about how I found it impossible to find NYC subway stops in my first visit to NYC because I looked for free standing buildings! I needed extra signs to point me, as a NYC newbie, to the subway station entrances in the sides of buildings. I can't remember if I'm thinking of the Christopher St PATH station or not- this was in the 1980s. I am capable of reading English and understanding pictograms, but I was at that time, not capable of thinking like a New Yorker to intuit where one would put a subway entrance if one had very little space.
I think Monderman's response to your example about the Indonesian on the escalator might be that, if he saw several people on the left side hurrying to pass him, he would move right, and would have learned this rule socially rather than by edict.
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Right, but I currently live in Washington, DC where this is an unwritten rule and it's violated during cherry blossom season and the summer by American tourists and then goes back into use in the other months. I know of what I speak when I say that such behavior is not predictable in a meaningful way.
What I am starting to suspect is that in the Netherlands there are cultural reasons why this idea works better than it might in the USA. I work with the EU on transportation issues and with absolute regularity in meetings people from some European countries- let's say Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium- make comments that all people should be able to address some sort of behavior a certain way because it's the right thing to do. Whereas people from the USA, Italy maybe the UK stare in disbelief because they know that malingerers and belligerents will do whatever they want- such as graffiti a freshly painted wall. For instance, in the Netherlands they have had a very successful "white bicycle" program of free bicycles. This program has never been duplicated to the same level of success in any other country and especially not in the USA where people vandalized and stole the bikes in Portland, OR. I truly believe these are cultural issues at play. Right now the biggest new immigrant group in my city is the Ethiopian/Eritrean community with a smattering of Sudanese. Working in an office with an Eritrean woman, a Nigerian man who went to high school here, a Serb and a Muslim yugoslavian, Persians, several people from areas all over China and then coordinating with the EU. I can't even tell you how many gaffes and faux pas we've all made as we work on these projects. And I don't even mean verbal gaffes, I mean if I cross my legs and raise my shoe in the air to put my laptop on my crossed legs several people cringe because shoes must never, ever leave the floor and certainly never pointed at anyone.
So from that experience I have my doubts this could work outside the country that already has white bicycles.
So I suspect the real issue is that there is a
Reduce speed limits to 30km/h everywhere, except for a few designated inter-city expressways. This reduces injury, when there is a crash.
Standard bumpers for all vehicles, starts at 20cm above ground level, rising up to 40cm. This makes sure the bumpers meet each other at contact, avoids the problem a sports car "digging" under a 4WD, or a car crashing into the back of a truck.
Bumpers should surround the vehicle entirely, and be made of rubber, or similar pliable material that reverts to it's original shape when deformed. Behind it, is a strong frame that does not deform during accidents. This way, minor collisions result in no damage. Think "fun fair bumper cars".
The low maximum speed means you can have smaller, lighter engines. Except for the bumpers, the rest of the car don't need so much "armour" to protect it's occupants. We can have light weight cars that weigh 200kg instead of 2000kg. We can have electric cars today.
We can have speed governors that limit vehicle speed to 30km/h, and get rid of speed bumps, and speed cameras.
The roads will be safer for pedestrians, but most importantly, I would be able to ride my bicycle again without risking life and limb.
@IVAN256 Yes, Yes, and Yes.
His ideas are solid, and logic driven.
If you corral drivers with what is obvious (there are pedestrians ahead! speed bumps! look, a school and lots of kids!) you remove the drivers' ability to, y'know, trust their own judgment.
So: a pedestrian crossing, littered with aforemention pedestrians: what will a driver do? Slow down, give way, most probably not hit anyone.
Same intersection with signage and heavy controls? The driver will obey the controls, and ignore what may actually be happening (ie: someone crossing the road).
It's not a huge leap of logic to trust people (pre-screened to be licensed, remember) to do the right thing, but if you subject them to a bunch of signs that force them to sometimes ignore common sense, then there's a good chance those signs overtake common sense.
There was an awesome write-up in a Wired mag a few years ago about forward-thinking traffic management, right from the book of Monderman.
Excuse the double post, BitTorrent is screwing with mah https.