Traffic safety can be seen as a function of freedom of movement. For example, safety on a highway with a 55 mile per hour speed limit is much better than on a highway without a speed limit. By reducing speed, or in other words reducing freedom of movement, government increases safety. This simple example shows that there is an interconnection between safety and freedom. How one understands this relationship can affect governmental policy decisions. The effect of speed limits is a well-documented fact;1 however, a lot of people do not obey speed limits. The reason is quite clear; they want to have higher speed, in other words, better freedom of movement, than government is allowing. Depending on the circumstances, when exceeding the speed limit a driver may or may not decrease his safety. We can see that there is a conflict between governmental and individual choices. When the choices do not coincide, large legal and .police organizations are needed to gain the people's acceptance of the governmental choices. Presented in this paper are observations of the conflict between urban traffic safety and freedom of movement. In urban street traffic the choices between safety and freedom are more complex than on highways. In addition to the conflict between governmental and individual choices, there are conflicts between various individuals, for example, between pedestrians and motorists, as well as among the motorists themselves. The choices made at the governmental ·level and at the individual level are determined by completely different rationales. Governmental rationale is mainly determined by the consideration of engineering factors and traffic laws. The choices made at the individual level are determined on the basis of observed behavior. The data used in the next chapter is based mainly on surveys conducted by the author in six Scandinavian cities from 1978 to 1980. The objective of the surveys was to determine who voluntarily yielded and who strictly followed the traffic laws under the following six traffic conditions: 1. Pedestrians crossing a street along a signalized crosswalk, 2. Pedestrians crossing a street along an unsignalized crosswalk, 3. Pedestrians crossing a street outside/without crosswalks, 4. Cars at a signalized intersection, 5. Cars at an unsignalized intersection, and 6. Cars at an intersection with yield signs. All crosswalks in the survey were marked with longitudinal lines and also had pedestrian crossing signs. In all crosswalks there were separate indications for vehicular traffic and pedestrians. The pedestrian signals were indicated by a steadily illuminated green walking-man or red standing-man light unit. No flashing phases were used. The traffic control signals were indicated by a steady green, yellow, red, and red with yellow phase light units. The surveys were conducted in the Scandinavian capitals: Helsinki (480,000 inhabitants), Stockholm (700,000 inhabitants), Oslo (470,000 inhabitants), and Copenhagen (700,000 inhabitants), and in the Finnish towns of Lappeenranta (53,000 inhabitants), and Savonlinna (28,000 (inhabitants). (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting