How does design impact behavior, actions, decisions, etc.
In the book, “Happy City” it says:” Road studies have found that most of us drive not according to posted speed limits, but according to how safe the road feels.
We drive as fast as road designs tell us to drive.
The result: drivers kill four times as many pedestrians on spacious suburban residential streets than on the narrow streets of traditional neighborhoods, because those spacious roads make driving faster feel safer.
And it is not collisions that kill people, but collisions at high speed. A pedestrians hit by a car going 35 miles per hour is 10 times more likely to die than if hit by a car going 25 miles per hour. “
I think most would agree with the below:
- high speed collisions kill people
- people tend to drive slower in crowded cities/on narrow roads
I’m very curious to know how many more people are hit in cities or narrow streets but not killed and how can we design our urban environments to be less deadly?
The author is a big proponent of bikes, which I think is a fantastic solution but not always a realistic one as many Americans highly value convenience.
Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash.
Elizabeth Beeli 