How do you get drivers to slow down?

County Executive Ken Ulman will be introducing legislation to put two speed cameras in school zones-- with the possibility for more-- after lots of studying speeding near the county's schools, according to an article by Larry Carson in the Baltimore Sun. "[Police Chief William] McMahon said a 48-hour weekday speed survey of 100 public and private schools in the county found that two-thirds of motorists were exceeding the posted speed limits and 18 percent were traveling more than 12 miles over the limit." Speed cameras can be a good way of reducing accidents and fatalities, with a number of reliable studies out there that support their efficacy.  (I say this as someone who's paid more than one Montgomery County speed camera ticket.)

Trevor over at HoCoPolitico points out to road improvements that worked for his neighborhood in River Hill:

Working with members of the community and the County Department of Public Works, we were able to create pedestrian islands, improved crosswalks, trim trees, improve signage and increase the number of police patrols.

These are all possible options to help combat speeding, but it's important to remember that what works for one road may not work for another. Additionally, while these approaches might help, they can also come with their own problems. Police patrols cost money and resources. Bump-outs make roads less bike-friendly. Signage and crosswalks are easily ignored and frequently forgotten. (Does anyone actually change their driving when you see a "Slow down for Children" or "Deer crossing" sign? I don't.) Speed cameras and little tricks to get drivers to slow down temporarily are not solutions-- they are band-aids. I don't mean that dismissively-- in working within budget, community, political, and other constraints, sometimes band-aids are the best and/or only option.

Tom Vanderbilt's excellent book Traffic: Why we drive the way we do (and what it says about us) discusses the issue of too-fast drivers at length. Vanderbilt cites study after study (it's interesting, I promise!) that produced non-intiuitive results which points to one conclusion, the thesis of his book: drivers' false feeling of safety on roads is dangerous, even fatal.

Ilchester Road is disconnected from what surrounds it. Drivers whizzing by can't really digest what's there. Sure, there are schools, and drivers might consider them for a mere split second as they pass the entrances. The school buildings themselves are set way back behind grass and parking lots. There are houses, but they are generally hidden behind trees or at least large yards and driveways, so there is no reason for concern. And there are no sidewalks, which means there are no pedestrians, right?

Drivers think they know what to expect from Ilchester-- nothing. Feeling safe from the unpredictable, drivers speed up. "Drivers adapt to the road they see," says Canadian engineer Ezra Hauer, as quoted in Traffic.  What they don't see are signs that the road is used for anything but transporting cars at a decent speed.

So we're back to square one. How do you get drivers to slow down?

Vanderbilt says we can make driving seem unpredictable on purpose.

Think about a roundabout verses a traffic light. At first glance, roundabouts seem confusing and less safe. At a roundabout, Vanderbilt writes, "drivers must adjust their speed, scan for openings, negotiate the merge. This requires more workload, which increases stress, which heightens the feeling of danger. This is not in itself a bad thing, because intersections are, after all, dangerous places. The system that makes us more aware of this is actually the safer one."  Roundabouts demand the driver's attention. At a stoplight, all thinking is done for me. Green means go, means I have the right of way, means I am safe as I drive.   Of course, that's not always true.

Another non-intuitive idea is narrowing wide driving lanes, using the extra space to add sidewalks or bike lanes (if possible). The point of this is three-fold.

1. it adds facilities for pedestrians and/or bicyclists (though I will say that Vanderbilt somewhat argues against bike lanes in his book-- I can't bring myself to agree with him on that one)
2. the sidewalks help make drivers aware that this road is for more than just cars and brings a little human-scale to the street
3. wide lanes contribute to a feeling of safety-- think about highways, where high-speed traffic depends on predictability. This lane I'm driving in is my space and I am safe in my bubble. The "unsafe" feelings that narrower lanes provide make the driver actually pay attention.  It should be noted that narrower lanes down to a ten foot width aren't actually any less safe than a twelve foot wide lane.

Now, your initial reaction might be "OMG you want to make things less safe?!" Not exactly.  Vanderbilt's research shows that in many cases, making driving seem "less safe" actually makes driving safer. When they are forced to pay attention to driving rather than drinking coffee and fiddling with the radio while moving at speeds that kill, drivers slow down. "The pursuit of a kind of absolute safety, has not only made those streets and cities less attractive, it has, in many cases, made them less safe. The things that work best in the traffic world of the highway-- consistency, wide lanes, knowing what to expect ahead of time, the reduction of conflicts, the restriction of access, and the removal of obstacles-- have little or no place in the social world," Vanderbilt writes.

Now, clearly, these ideas aren't always necessarily budget-friendly, and speed cameras may be the only viable option for Ilchester.  Ulman is quoted in the Sun article as saying that "every single dollar generated will go back into traffic safety."  I'm no traffic engineer, but I do hope the powers that be give Vanderbilt's ideas some thought when spending speed camera revenue to improve traffic safety on our roads.  If speed cameras pass, that is.