How Road Designers Are Manipulating Us into Being More Careful Drivers

Our roads might start to look significantly different in the near future—and finally begin to get safer.

New cars have more safety technology than ever, and yet accident rates and road fatalities are on the rise. The reasons behind the trend and the best way to combat it are hotly debated, but some city planners think they have the key to reversing it. So-called nudge theory helped economist Richard Thaler win a Nobel Prize in 2017; it posits that policies and environments should be designed to encourage people to make choices that will benefit them in the long run. 

When applied to public roadways, the logic goes that when drivers are comfortable with their surroundings, they're less likely to pay attention. So traffic engineers design cues into the roadways that spur people into changing their behavior without realizing it.

Chicago was one of the first U.S. cities to experiment with this idea. In 2006, it painted a series of lines across the road ahead of a dangerous curve on North Lake Shore Drive. As cars approach the curve, the gaps between the lines shrink and create the illusion that the car is speeding up, prompting drivers to step on the brakes.

"A lot of nudge theory is not so much about introducing something new, but rather repackaging information that's already out there and presenting it in other ways," says Dr. Mikael Ljung Aust, a technical specialist at the Volvo Cars Safety Centre. Drivers regularly ignore signs such as "Dangerous Curve Ahead," but visual cues like the lines on North Lake Shore Drive work on a subconscious level, and drivers react to them instinctively.

Chicago traffic engineers reported a 36 percent reduction in crashes at the North Lake Shore Drive curve in the first six months after installation. Since then, the Chicago Department of Transportation has painted the gapped lines at a similar curve, and two additional projects are pending as of October. Other examples of attention-grabbing road features can be found all over; the Hawaii DOT, for example, uses zig-zagging lines on roadways ahead of busy intersections and school zones and shark's-teeth patterns ahead of blind curves.

Cities such as West Palm Beach, Florida, and Seattle have delved into so-called shared spaces that intermingle vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians with few or no demarcating barriers or signs. Instead of adding cues, road designers take away conventional guidance (i.e. lane markings, signage, etc.). In theory, drivers show more cooperation at intersections when there are no traffic signals, and they exhibit more caution toward cyclists and pedestrians when there are no bike lanes, curbs, or sidewalks. "It makes for much safer interactions," Aust says.

 "Traffic is slower, but also safer."

Even though nudge theory's influence is growing, it's still not a leading ideology for road design, and critics call its approach to policy paternalistic. But early implementers like Chicago and Seattle have been happy with the results and are planning to explore the strategy further. If those new projects bear more evidence that nudging encourages sustained behavioral changes and fewer accidents, our roads might start to look significantly different—and finally begin to get safer.

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