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Comment by tom_vidal | Hacker News Reader

Your car bias is showing here. The reason bike lanes and traffic calming measures get installed is because people are literally dying due to poor road design that prioritizes car speed over everything else.

You might not want traffic calming, but everyone else who has to deal with your driving does.

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And isn't it really about how people are driving? In my state, we drive like maniacs, constantly speeding at least ten MPH over the limit. The term, "drive friendly" is scoffed at. Slowing down to let someone on the highway is unseen.

On city streets, tailgating is common, jacked up pick-ups are drenching the interior of your car with their headlights after dark, making all your mirrors a blinding image. Can we please put our phones down for safety's sake? Sometimes I ride a motorcycle, so I'm hyper aware and see all kinds of just plain terrible driving practices. Most of it is simply a lack of patience behind the wheel. On the turnpike, when that car passes doing twenty over, do we really think they think about the possible consequences?

Yes, people in general are terrible at driving. Teaching them is hopeless that's why we need solutions that works. There are two right now: infrastructure that makes it hard and very inconvenient to go fast and heavy handed enforcement. The latter option only works in very well developed civilised societes like Switzerland or Nordic countries have. Most others are stuck with traffic calling measures as their population has too little too lose to care about safety.

The solution is easy, I just saw it implemented in a nearby town (8k people): make the road curb a little, never fully straight, add bollards everywhere on the side of the road, and narrow the road at every crossing (with metal/concrete bollards). Bollards are great: they protect pedestrian and are intimidating it seems. According to the mayor (I ate with him, friend of my mother) the architect who gave him the idea was a nudge expert, and they tested it first with thin, plastic bollards around the town (it worked, but wasn't protective enough). The city is halfway between two economic 'centers' (28k and 50k population) and see a lot of traffic as those cities grow. No pedestrian death in the last two years AFAIK, when pre-covid you had half a dozen injuries every year and a mortal accident every other year.

So the bollards do seems to work. Install bollards!

Absolutely this. If people are maniacs and can't control their speed themselves, design the roads so they can't drive at insane speeds on them. I live right across the street from a school. During school times, the speed limit is 25 miles per hour. The road is perfectly straight with clear sight lines and the lanes are literally as wide as freeway lanes (12') with bike lanes on both sides making it feel even wider. If you had no context of the road and what was off of it, you'd comfortably cruise at 55+ because the road is designed for that.

Throw in some strategically placed bollards or chicanes to change the geometry of the road and people will be forced to slow down.

http://www.thinkstreetsmart.org/uploads/1/2/7/4/127450599/ed...

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