Traffic_ Why We Drive The Way We Do Part 7

A favorite example for Hamilton-Baillie of how things can be different is Seven Dials in London, the small circular junction in the Covent Garden district where seven streets converge. At a small plaza in the center, marked by a sundial, it's not uncommon to find people eating their lunch or to see them strolling across the roundabout, even as cars navigate their way slowly around the s.p.a.ce. There are no guardrails protecting the pedestrians sitting in the center from the road. There are no speed b.u.mps on the approaches. There are no signs warning, PEOPLE EATING LUNCH AHEAD PEOPLE EATING LUNCH AHEAD. Rather, the uncertainty of the s.p.a.ce and its human-scaled geometry dictate the behavior. There is an element of mystery and surprise, one that Charles d.i.c.kens remarked upon over a century before in Sketches by Boz: Sketches by Boz: "The stranger who finds himself in the Dials for the first time...at the entrance of Seven obscure pa.s.sages, uncertain which to take, will see enough around him to keep his curiosity awake for no inconsiderable time." "The stranger who finds himself in the Dials for the first time...at the entrance of Seven obscure pa.s.sages, uncertain which to take, will see enough around him to keep his curiosity awake for no inconsiderable time."

That awakened curiosity is still present today, and for drivers and pedestrians it translates into a need to pay attention. Even as a pedestrian navigating the Dials, I found myself confused. Which of the seven streets led to the Tube? If only there was a sign to point the way. Instead I paused, looked around, and decided to take the road that had the most people on it. This was the social world, and I was relying on human instincts. My choice was correct, and I found the Tube.

Forgiving Roads or Permissive Roads? The Fatal Flaws of Traffic Engineering One of Hans Monderman's many interesting ideas about traffic was that it is a network not only in s.p.a.ce but in time. What this means is that the farther we drive, the faster we expect to be able to go. "When I start at home, I drive very slowly," he told me. "All my neighbors know me, they are part of my world, and I part of theirs, and it's absolutely unacceptable that I speed in my own street. But after a few minutes, I'm a bit more anonymous, and the more anonymous I get, the more my foot goes down and I'm speeding more and more." At the beginning of his trip, he was in the social world, and at the end of it, perhaps arriving in another village, he was as well. But what about the in-between? This was when he appreciated the traffic world, with all its signs and markings and safety measures and speeds. "When you want nice villages," he noted, "you need freeways."

But there is a problem with that in-between. Sometimes the roads on which people drive fast, as if they are the restricted-access highways of the traffic world, still have elements of the social world. People live near them, do their shopping on them, perhaps even have to cross them on foot. "I always say the road in-between is the most dangerous road," Monderman remarked. "It's not a highway, but it's not a residential street. All these roads have the biggest accident problem. The road is often telling you this is a traffic system: We have organized everything around you for all your needs. But the same road is cutting as a knife through the social world. The traffic world and the social world are shouting at each other."

One finds a striking example of this situation not in the Netherlands but in Orlando, Florida. Dan Burden is a widely acclaimed traffic guru who now works with the Orlando transportation planning firm Glatting Jackson. We were cruising down East Colonial Drive, which is the Orlando stretch of U.S. Highway 50, heading for Baldwin Park, a New Urbanist community built on a former naval base that Burden was eager to show me. Burden, famously known for his elaborate walruslike mustache, was newly clean-shaven ("It's for charity," he explained). As we drove, Burden gave a running commentary on the nature of the street, which bears a dubious distinction: One a.n.a.lysis found it to be the twelfth-deadliest road in America. (The deadliest road, according to another survey, is U.S. 19, also in Florida, a few hours away.) In the beginning, we were in the urban section of East Colonial Drive, which runs through the heart of north Orlando. It looked a bit like Los Angeles, a mixture of strip malls with a smattering of people on the sidewalks. Buildings were not set back very far, and the road was lined with concrete utility poles and other obstacles. As we pa.s.sed a speed-limit sign, I did a double take. It read, 40 MPH MPH. That struck me as strange. We were driving in what seemed to be a place that would be posted for 35 at the most. This is not uncommon in Florida, according to Burden. "If you looked on a city-by-city basis, county by county, you're going to find our high speeds are seven to fifteen higher than they will be in most states."

Continuing on Colonial, we entered the historically newer sections of town, and the road began to change subtly. The lanes became wider, the speed limit was raised to 45, and the sidewalks, when they existed at all, were dozens of feet from the road. "Notice how far back the sidewalk is," Burden exclaimed. "What is it, fifty feet? It's so far back it's like another world. There's no trees, and they've pushed the clear zone as far back as they could." Pulling into the parking lot of a Circle K convenience store, we saw a small white memorial posted in the swath of gra.s.s between the road and the gas pumps. Florida, somewhat controversially, is one of the few states that allows family members to place memorials on the site of fatal crashes. (The states that don't cite reasons ranging from the perceived safety risks of the memorials themselves to highway aesthetics.) It wasn't the first memorial I had seen. But I hadn't seen any in the more downtown part of Colonial Drive. Had I just not looked carefully enough, or was something else going on?

Colonial Drive is a tale of two roads. The first section of the road, with its narrow lanes, many crosswalks, thicker congestion, and bountiful collection of utility poles, parked cars, and other hazards, is the kind of road conventional traffic engineering has judged to be more dangerous. More people packed more tightly together, more chances for things to go wrong. The newer section of Colonial, with its wider lanes, its generous clear zones (i.e., roadsides without obstacles), its less-congested feel, and its fewer pedestrians, would be judged to be safer.

But when Eric Dumbaugh, an a.s.sistant professor of urban planning at Texas A&M University, did an in-depth a.n.a.lysis of five years' worth of crash statistics on East Colonial Drive, his results were surprising. He looked at two sections: what he terms a "livable" section, with the narrower lanes and lack of clear zones, and a section with wider lanes and more generous clear zones. In many respects, the two sections were similar, and thus ideal for comparison: They had the same average daily traffic, the same number of lanes, and the speed limits were similar (40 miles per hour versus 45). They had similarly sized painted medians in between the opposing streams of traffic, and the lengths of roadway were the same. They'd even had the same number of crashes at intersections, and the age of the at-fault drivers in those crashes was the same.

When Dumbaugh looked at the number of midblock crashes, precisely those types that should be reduced by the safety features of the road with wider lanes and wider clear zones, he found that the livable section was safer in every meaningful way. On the livable section, there had not been a fatality in five years (and hence there were no white memorial markers). On the comparison section, there had been six fatalities, three of them pedestrians. The livable section, which offered a driver many more chances to hit a "fixed object," had fewer of these crash types than the section designed to avoid those crashes. What about cars crashing into other cars? Surely the livable section, with all its drivers slowing to look for parking or coming out of parking spots, with all those cars packed tightly together, must have had more crashes. But across the board, from rear-end crashes to head-on crashes to turn-related crashes to sideswipe crashes, the numbers were higher in the section that the conventional wisdom would have deemed safer.

Why might this be so? Without a detailed reconstruction of each crash, it is impossible to be certain. But there are plausible hypotheses. Speed is a prime suspect. The wider lanes and lack of any roadside obstacles in the comparison section make 45 miles per hour seem optional, and some drivers are hitting near-highway speeds as other drivers are slowing to enter Wal-Mart or coming out of Wendy's. The painted median down the middle, known colloquially as a "suicide lane," allows people to make turns wherever they like. But these turns are across several lanes of oncoming high-speed traffic, and as we saw in Chapter 3, choosing safe gaps is not often an easy task for humans.

For pedestrians, a seemingly trivial variance in a car's speed can be the difference between life and death. A Florida study found that a pedestrian struck by a car moving 36 to 45 miles per hour was almost twice as likely to be killed than one struck by a car moving 31 to 35 miles per hour, and almost four times four times as likely as one struck by a car moving 26 to 30 miles per hour. In the livable section, pedestrians have an ample number of crosswalks, placed closely together. In the newer section, there are few crosswalks, and the ones that do exist are found at large intersections with multiple lanes of turning traffic. The "curb radii," or the curves, are long and gentle, enticing drivers to take them quickly, and do nothing to remind drivers about the pedestrians that may be legally crossing with the signal around that bend. In the livable section, drivers must slow to take tight turns, and parked cars buffer pedestrians from cars that veer off the road-not to mention that parked cars themselves cut speeds by some 10 percent. as likely as one struck by a car moving 26 to 30 miles per hour. In the livable section, pedestrians have an ample number of crosswalks, placed closely together. In the newer section, there are few crosswalks, and the ones that do exist are found at large intersections with multiple lanes of turning traffic. The "curb radii," or the curves, are long and gentle, enticing drivers to take them quickly, and do nothing to remind drivers about the pedestrians that may be legally crossing with the signal around that bend. In the livable section, drivers must slow to take tight turns, and parked cars buffer pedestrians from cars that veer off the road-not to mention that parked cars themselves cut speeds by some 10 percent.

Dumbaugh's research challenges a school of thought that has long held an almost una.s.sailable authority in traffic engineering: "pa.s.sive safety." This line of thinking, which emerged in the United States in the 1960s, says that rather than trying to prevent crashes, highway engineers (as well as car makers) should try to reduce the consequences of crashes, or, as one highway manual put it, "to compensate for the driving errors [the driver] will eventually make." Engineers running cars on "proving ground" test roadways found that once they departed the roadway, cars came to a stop an average of thirty feet off the road-so this became the standard minimum "clear zone," that section of legally required nothingness beyond the edge marking and before any obstacle. At General Motors, a "crash-proof highway" was designed with one-hundred-foot one-hundred-foot clear zones. Its engineer was so impressed with the performance that he declared, "What we must do is operate the ninety percent or more of our surface streets just as we do our freeways...[converting] the surface highway and street network to freeway and proving ground road and roadside conditions." clear zones. Its engineer was so impressed with the performance that he declared, "What we must do is operate the ninety percent or more of our surface streets just as we do our freeways...[converting] the surface highway and street network to freeway and proving ground road and roadside conditions."

In many cases, like on East Colonial Drive, that is exactly what happened. The traffic world was brought to the social world. The design is well in line with the stated current engineering guidance: "The wider the clear zone, the safer it is." But far from ensuring safety, the road was home to more crashes than the section of the street that looked more like a traditional city street, even though the traffic was similar. What went wrong?

Part of the problem may be the in-betweenness of the newer sections of East Colonial. Walter Kulash, another noted traffic engineer with Glatting Jackson, says traffic engineers are not always to blame. Roads like Highway 50, he told me, are being used in ways engineers never intended. Designed as arteries to ferry people from one city cl.u.s.ter to another, they have instead become the "Main Streets" for suburban sprawl, lined with busy shopping centers and strip malls. "The engineers had nothing to do with that development, fronted by parking, for miles along the arterials, like you saw on Colonial Drive," Kulash said. "That is highly injurious to the function of the highway. The fact that fifty thousand travelers a day are bundled together, thereby making that irresistible to commerce, you might say, Okay, who's responsible for that? But you can hardly say a majority of blame ought to go to highway engineers."

From a strict engineering perspective, the "proving ground" approach makes sense. As Phil Jones, a traffic engineer based in the Midlands of England, argues, engineers are taught to work in "failure" mode. To design a bridge on a highway, engineers calculate the loads the bridge will need to carry, find out at which point the bridge would fail, and then make it more safe than that, for redundancy. But what happens when the factors involved are not just loads and stresses but the more infinitely complex range of humans behind the wheel?

In designing the approach path to a T-intersection, engineers use the factor of driver reaction time to determine what the appropriate sight distance should be-that is, the point at which the driver should have a clear view of the intersection. The sight distance is typically made longer than needed, to accommodate drivers with the slowest reaction times (e.g., the elderly). As with the highway bridge, the road design has a safety cushion to help it withstand extremes. So far, so good. But designing the road for slow reaction times, Jones explains, creates "very long sight distances, so someone who's younger and more able and can react faster than that will consume that benefit. What the safety model doesn't recognize is that yes, the elderly person will react more slowly, but they're not the ones driving fast in the first place. You're giving license to people to drive more quickly." This may be why, as studies have shown, railroad crossings where the sight distance is restricted-that is, you can see less of the track and the oncoming train-do not have higher crash rates than those with better views. Drivers approached the tracks more quickly when they felt it was safer.

What is meant to be the "forgiving road," argues Dumbaugh, becomes the "permissive road." Safety features meant to reduce the consequences of driver error encourage drivers to drive in a way requiring requiring those generous safety provisions. Sometimes, pa.s.sive-safety engineering makes things more dangerous. Dumbaugh studied a Florida road on which a number of cars had crashed into trees and poles. Simple, right? Just get rid of the obstacles and make the clear zones bigger. Looking carefully at the crash records, however, Dumbaugh found that the majority of crashes happened at intersections and driveways, as cars were turning. Were the obstacles the problem or was it, as Dumbaugh suggested, that drivers were unable to complete the turn because they were traveling too fast as they entered the turn, at the high speed the road design was telling them was "safe"? those generous safety provisions. Sometimes, pa.s.sive-safety engineering makes things more dangerous. Dumbaugh studied a Florida road on which a number of cars had crashed into trees and poles. Simple, right? Just get rid of the obstacles and make the clear zones bigger. Looking carefully at the crash records, however, Dumbaugh found that the majority of crashes happened at intersections and driveways, as cars were turning. Were the obstacles the problem or was it, as Dumbaugh suggested, that drivers were unable to complete the turn because they were traveling too fast as they entered the turn, at the high speed the road design was telling them was "safe"?

In both Drachten and London, choices were made to remove traffic-safety infrastructure like signs and barriers. These choices were influenced by aesthetics, but they had the perverse outcome of making things safer. The problem with applying typical highway-engineering solutions to cities, villages, and the other places people live is that the same things that often signify "livability" are, in the eyes of a traffic engineer, "hazards."

Take the case of trees. In my Brooklyn neighborhood, they add to the desirability of a street. They raise property values. They may protect pedestrians from wayward cars. Yet they're also a common bane of traffic engineers, who have been-perhaps with the best of intentions-removing them from roadsides for decades. While many people have indeed died from colliding with trees, there is nothing inherently dangerous about a tree. What matters is the context. In his research Dumbaugh looked at a section of a road in Florida that travels through Stetson University. It's lined with mature trees, a few feet from the road. In four years, Dumbaugh found, there was not a single crash. What's more, he observed, most cars traveled at or even below the speed limit of 30 miles per hour (which many studies-and probably your own experience-have shown is rarely the case in cities). The hazards were were the safety device. Drivers left with little room for error seemed quite capable of not making errors, or at least driving at a speed that would help "forgive" their own error. the safety device. Drivers left with little room for error seemed quite capable of not making errors, or at least driving at a speed that would help "forgive" their own error.

The tree-lined road goes against the typical engineering paradigm, which would have deemed the trees unsafe and in need of removal. With the trees (the potential source of system failure) removed, a typical pattern would have happened: Speeds would have increased. The risk to pedestrians (students at Stetson, mostly) would have gone up; perhaps a pedestrian would have been struck. The police would have been called in to set up speed traps. Eventually, vertical deflection-a.k.a. speed b.u.mps-would have been installed to calm the traffic. Having made the road safer, new measures would have been needed to again make it safe.

The pursuit of a kind of absolute safety, above all other considerations of what makes places good environments, 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, uniformity, 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.

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How Traffic Explains the World: On Driving with a Local Accent "Good Brakes, Good Horn, Good Luck": Plunging into the Maelstrom of Delhi Traffic Opening his eyes, he would know the place by the rhythm of movements in the street long before he caught any characteristic detail.

-Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities The Man Without Qualities

"What other city in the world is like Delhi?" demanded Qamar Ahmed, the city's joint commissioner of traffic, as we sat drinking chai chai in his office. Clad in a khaki uniform topped with bright epaulettes on each shoulder, Ahmed brusquely shifted his attention between me and any one of the three mobile phones on his desk that kept ringing. An air conditioner labored against the enveloping premonsoon heat. "Delhi has forty-eight modes of transport, each struggling to occupy the same s.p.a.ce on the carriageway. in his office. Clad in a khaki uniform topped with bright epaulettes on each shoulder, Ahmed brusquely shifted his attention between me and any one of the three mobile phones on his desk that kept ringing. An air conditioner labored against the enveloping premonsoon heat. "Delhi has forty-eight modes of transport, each struggling to occupy the same s.p.a.ce on the carriageway. What What other city is like this?" other city is like this?"

To exit the Indira Gandhi International Airport, typically at night, when the international flights arrive, and alight into one of the city's ubiquitous black-and-yellow Amba.s.sador cabs is to enter a motorized maelstrom. As an anticongestion measure, trucks are allowed into Delhi only between ten p.m. and six a.m., and so the spa.r.s.ely lit road is thronged with lorries. They lurch, belch smoke, and ceaselessly toot their pressure horns. This seems by invitation: The back of most trucks bears the brightly festooned legend "Horn Please," often accompanied by a request to "Use Dipper at Night" (this means "dim your lights"). "Horn Please" originally invited following drivers to honk if they wanted to pa.s.s the slower-moving, lane-hogging trucks on the narrower roads of the past, and I was told that it endures merely as a decorative tradition. Nevertheless, a cacophony of claxons filled the air.

By day, the mayhem is revealed as true chaos. Delhi's streets play host to a bewildering stream of zigzagging green-and-yellow auto-rickshaws, speeding cabs, weaving bicyclists, slow-moving oxen-drawn carts, multi-pa.s.sengered motorcycles conveying helmetless children and sari-clad women who struggle to keep their clothing from getting tangled in the chain, and heaving buses, which are often forced out of the bus-only lane because it is filled with cyclists and pedestrians, who are themselves in the lane because there tends to be no sidewalk, or "footpath," as they say in Delhi. If there is a footpath, it is often occupied by people sleeping, eating, selling, buying, or simply sitting watching the traffic go by. Limbless beggars and young hawkers converge at each intersection, scratching at the windows as drivers study the countdown signals that tell them when the traffic lights will change. Endearingly, if hopelessly, the signals have been embellished with a single word: RELAX RELAX. In the roundabouts of New Delhi, the traffic whizzes and weaves defiantly past faded safety signs bearing blunt messages like OBEY TRAFFIC RULES, AVOID BLOOD POOL OBEY TRAFFIC RULES, AVOID BLOOD POOL and and DON'T DREAM OTHERWISE YOU'LL SCREAM DON'T DREAM OTHERWISE YOU'LL SCREAM. These signs are as morbidly whimsical as they are common, leading one to suspect that somewhere, lurking in Delhi's Public Works Department, is a desk-bound bureaucrat with the soul of a poet.

The most striking feature of Delhi traffic is the occasional presence of a cow or two, often lying idly in the median strip, feet away from traffic. The medians, it is said, provide a resting place that is not only dry but kept free from pesky flies by the buffeting winds of pa.s.sing cars. I posed the question of cows to Maxwell Pereira, Delhi's former top traffic cop, who has of late been playing the Colonel Pinto character on Indian Sesame Street. Sesame Street. "Let me correct a little misperception," he told me as we sat in his office in the Gurgaon district. "The presence of a cow in a congested urban area is no hazard. Much as I don't like the presence of a cow on the road when I am advocating smoother traffic and convenience, the presence of a cow also forces a person to slow down. The overall impact is to reduce the tendency to overspeed and to rashly and negligently drive." Cows, in effect, act as the "mental speed b.u.mps" that Australian traffic activist David Engwicht described in Chapter 7. They provide "intrigue and uncertainty," as Engwicht put it, and the average Delhi driver would certainly rather be late for work than hit a cow. "Let me correct a little misperception," he told me as we sat in his office in the Gurgaon district. "The presence of a cow in a congested urban area is no hazard. Much as I don't like the presence of a cow on the road when I am advocating smoother traffic and convenience, the presence of a cow also forces a person to slow down. The overall impact is to reduce the tendency to overspeed and to rashly and negligently drive." Cows, in effect, act as the "mental speed b.u.mps" that Australian traffic activist David Engwicht described in Chapter 7. They provide "intrigue and uncertainty," as Engwicht put it, and the average Delhi driver would certainly rather be late for work than hit a cow.

I heard that particularly Indian phrase-"rash and negligent driving"-often while in Delhi, but after a few days I started to lose sight of how that could differ from the norm. Delhi drivers have a chronic tendency to stray between lanes, most alarmingly those flowing in the opposite direction. The only signal used with regularity is the horn. Instead of working brake lights (or indeed any lights), many trucks have the phrase KEEP DISTANCE KEEP DISTANCE painted on the back, a subtle reminder to the driver behind: painted on the back, a subtle reminder to the driver behind: I may stop at any moment. I may stop at any moment. Some taxis, on the other hand, bear the inscription Some taxis, on the other hand, bear the inscription KEEP DISTANCE. POWER BRAKE KEEP DISTANCE. POWER BRAKE. This means: I may come to a stop faster than you expect. I may come to a stop faster than you expect.

Many vehicles lack side rearview mirrors, or keep them folded in. Auto-rickshaw wallahs actually mount their side-view mirrors on the inside, presumably to keep them from getting clipped off-or from clipping others. When changing lanes, drivers seem to rely not on the mirrors but rather that the person behind them will honk if there is danger. (It is not uncommon, meanwhile, to see scores of bus pa.s.sengers leaning out the windows and advising the driver about whether he can merge, or trying to guide traffic themselves.) As a result of this collective early warning system, the sound of horns, on a road like Janpath in New Delhi, is as constant as birdcalls. When I asked one taxi driver, who went by the moniker J.P., how he coped with Delhi traffic, his answer was quick: "Good brakes, good horn, good luck."

After spending some time in the city, one vacillates between thinking Delhi drivers (and pedestrians) are either the best or worst in the world-the best because they're so adept at maneuvering in tight s.p.a.ces and tricky situations, or the worst because they put themselves there to begin with. "That is why we have a negative connotation to the phrase 'defensive driving' in India," said Pereira, who still speaks in the flowery but formal vernacular of Indian officialdom. "Defensive driving is defending yourself from all the vagaries, including the negligence contribution on the part of the other road user." Pereira advised me not to try Delhi traffic firsthand: "The Indian driver relies more on his reflexes, absolutely. Your reflexes would not be geared to expect the unexpected."

Conversely, when Pereira finds himself in the United States visiting relatives, his pa.s.sengers, who may fail to appreciate the lingering aftereffects of Delhi traffic, are often perturbed by his driving style. "When I see a vehicle approaching from a side road, I tense up. Internally, I'm used to a condition in India where I'm not sure if when they are coming from the side road they will step into my path," he said, adding that in the States, "you expect that he will never; here I will not expect that he will never. The halt-and-proceed thing is not there."

Arguably, drivers anywhere should always try to expect the unexpected, but this is taken to a kind of high art in Delhi, where the unexpected perversely becomes the expected. There are nearly 110 million traffic violations per day per day in Delhi, I was told by Rohit Baluja as we sat in his office in the Okhla Industrial Area, eating lunch out of the small metal pails known as tiffins. in Delhi, I was told by Rohit Baluja as we sat in his office in the Okhla Industrial Area, eating lunch out of the small metal pails known as tiffins.

The dapper and successful owner of a shoe company, Baluja founded the Inst.i.tute of Road Traffic Education in an effort to improve the conditions of Indian roads, on which an estimated 100,000 people die every year-one out of every ten road deaths in the world. He launched IRTE after a succession of business trips to Germany, where he was astounded by the well-defined and relatively orderly traffic system. "As soon as I returned to Delhi it felt as if everybody here is stealing your right-of-way, and that n.o.body understands there is something called a right-of-way," he said. In 2002, a group of English police studying Delhi traffic told Baluja that whereas in the United Kingdom one can predict with 90 percent certainty the behavior of the average road user, in Delhi they felt that no more than 10 percent compliance could be antic.i.p.ated. They called it anarchy on the roads. "We have started living in indiscipline, so we don't feel there is an indiscipline," Baluja told me.

The estimate of daily traffic violations was obtained by IRTE researchers who followed and filmed random vehicles on the streets of Delhi in a camera-and-radar-equipped SUV they called the Interceptor. I was shown a sample of this footage by Amandeep Singh Bedi, a researcher at IRTE, and all the "vagaries" that Pereira had been discussing came to light. In one clip, a driver is rear-ended when he stops his car suddenly in the middle of a busy road. Why did he stop? So he could buckle his seat belt and not be challaned, challaned, or fined, by a traffic cop posted on the side of the road. In another, a bus illegally halts far from the marked curbside bus stop, making harried pa.s.sengers weave through several traffic streams simply to board the bus. It soon becomes clear that one reason the number of violations is so high is that many drivers are forced to violate the rules in reaction to another driver violating the rules: The bus lane is filled with pedestrians or bicycles (who, in fairness, have nowhere else to go), so the bus cannot travel in the bus lane; thus begins a cascade of violations across the traffic stream. or fined, by a traffic cop posted on the side of the road. In another, a bus illegally halts far from the marked curbside bus stop, making harried pa.s.sengers weave through several traffic streams simply to board the bus. It soon becomes clear that one reason the number of violations is so high is that many drivers are forced to violate the rules in reaction to another driver violating the rules: The bus lane is filled with pedestrians or bicycles (who, in fairness, have nowhere else to go), so the bus cannot travel in the bus lane; thus begins a cascade of violations across the traffic stream.

Not everything can be strictly blamed on the driver. Lane markings are often missing, shattered wrecks sit in the middle of busy roads, foliage obscures traffic lights, and sometimes traffic signs in Delhi are no more than small, barely legible hand-lettered placards taped to utility poles; a "No U-Turn" sign may look more like a suburban garage-sale announcement. These are created by an artist with the Delhi Traffic Police. "Sometimes there is a gap in my request [for a new sign] and their installation," Ahmed admitted to me with a sigh. "To fill up this gap we make these signs."

Things are even worse in the countryside. "Our highways are built by consultants from across the world," Baluja said. "They have got no idea of mixed traffic conditions. Highways have been built cutting across villages. Villagers cross still, but underpa.s.ses were not made for them." And so what is meant to be a restricted-access highway becomes, unintentionally, a small village road, with animals crossing, vendors selling fruit and newspapers on the median strip, and bus pa.s.sengers queuing up for buses that have stopped directly on the carriageway. Openings are cut into guardrails, or the guardrails themselves are stolen for sc.r.a.p. In vain, localities do things like erect stop signs on high-speed national highways-taking "expect the unexpected" to a new level.

On one of my last days in Delhi, I witnessed an episode that seemed to contain the exasperating essence of the Delhi traffic experience. One afternoon, as the temperature swelled to over one hundred degrees, the air pregnant with the weight of the rainy season, I saw a funeral procession on the famously bustling Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi. A group of men were bearing aloft a body draped in white fabric and marigold garlands, jostling through the traffic of cycle-rickshaws, pedestrians, scooters, and carts heaped high with produce. A thought occurred to me then: The living may indeed fear for their lives on Delhi roads, but even the dead have to fight for s.p.a.ce.

Why New Yorkers Jaywalk (and Why They Don't in Copenhagen): Traffic as Culture One of the first things that strikes a visitor to a new country is the traffic. This happens in part simply because foreign traffic, like a foreign currency or language, represents a different standard. The cars look odd (who makes that that?), the road widths may feel unusual, the traffic may drive on the other side of the road, the speed limits may be higher or lower than one is used to, and one may struggle, as one does with shower-heads at the hotel, with traffic signs that look somewhat familiar but still escape interpretation: A particular symbol might refer to rocks falling or sheep crossing the road-or both, at the same time. I was once in the back of a London taxi when I saw a red-and-white traffic sign that declared, CHANGED PRIORITIES AHEAD. CHANGED PRIORITIES AHEAD. Whose priorities, I thought with a panic-mine? All of ours? Whose priorities, I thought with a panic-mine? All of ours?

Most of the standard stuff is fairly simple, requiring only slight adjustments to adapt. The more difficult thing to crack is the traffic culture. traffic culture. This is how people drive, how people cross the street, how power relations are made manifest in those interactions, what sorts of patterns emerge from the traffic. Traffic is a sort of secret window onto the inner heart of a place, a form of cultural expression as vital as language, dress, or music. It's the reason a horn in Rome does not mean the same thing as a horn in Stockholm, why flashing your headlights at another driver is understood one way on the German autobahn and quite another way on the 405 in Los Angeles, why people jaywalk constantly in New York and hardly at all in Copenhagen. These are the impressions that stick with us. "Greek drivers are crazy," the visitor to Athens will observe, safely back in Kabul. This is how people drive, how people cross the street, how power relations are made manifest in those interactions, what sorts of patterns emerge from the traffic. Traffic is a sort of secret window onto the inner heart of a place, a form of cultural expression as vital as language, dress, or music. It's the reason a horn in Rome does not mean the same thing as a horn in Stockholm, why flashing your headlights at another driver is understood one way on the German autobahn and quite another way on the 405 in Los Angeles, why people jaywalk constantly in New York and hardly at all in Copenhagen. These are the impressions that stick with us. "Greek drivers are crazy," the visitor to Athens will observe, safely back in Kabul.

But what explains this traffic culture? Where does it come from? Why did I find the traffic in Delhi so strange? Why does Belgium, a country for all intents and purposes quite similar to the neighboring Netherlands, have comparatively riskier roads? Is it the quality of the roads, the kinds of cars driven, the education of the drivers, the laws on the books, the mind-set of the people? The answer is complicated. It may be a bit of all of these things. There does, however, seem to be one overarching, "rule of thumb" way to measure the traffic culture of a country, its degrees of order or chaos, safety or danger; we will return to this in the next section.

The first thing to recognize is that traffic culture is relative. relative. One reason Delhi traffic feels intense to outsiders is simple population density: The metropolitan area of Delhi packs five times the people into the same s.p.a.ce as New York City, a place that already feels pretty crowded. More people, more traffic, more interactions. Another reason Delhi seems so chaotic (to me, at least) is the staggering array of vehicles, all moving at different speeds and in different ways. The forty-eight modes of transport I referred to earlier are a far cry from those of my hometown, New York City, which has roughly five: cars, trucks, bicycles, pedestrians, and motorcycles or scooters (with a few horse-drawn carriages and cycle-rickshaws thrown in for tourists). Many places in the United States are essentially down to two modes: cars and trucks. One reason Delhi traffic feels intense to outsiders is simple population density: The metropolitan area of Delhi packs five times the people into the same s.p.a.ce as New York City, a place that already feels pretty crowded. More people, more traffic, more interactions. Another reason Delhi seems so chaotic (to me, at least) is the staggering array of vehicles, all moving at different speeds and in different ways. The forty-eight modes of transport I referred to earlier are a far cry from those of my hometown, New York City, which has roughly five: cars, trucks, bicycles, pedestrians, and motorcycles or scooters (with a few horse-drawn carriages and cycle-rickshaws thrown in for tourists). Many places in the United States are essentially down to two modes: cars and trucks.

Geetam Tiwari, a professor at the Indian Inst.i.tute of Technology in Delhi, has posited that what may look like anarchy in the eyes of conventional traffic engineering (and Western drivers) actually has a logic all its own. Far from breaking down into gridlock, she suggests, the "self-optimized" system of Delhi can actually move more people at the busiest times than the standard models would imply. When traffic is moving briskly on two- and three-lane roads, bicycles tend to form an impromptu bike lane in the curb lane; the more bikes, the wider the lane. But when traffic begins to get congested, when the flows approach 2,000 cars per lane per hour and 6,000 bikes per lane per hour, the system undergoes a change. The bicyclists (and motorcyclists) start to "integrate," filling in the "longitudinal gaps" between cars and buses. Cars slow dramatically, bikes less so. The slowly moving queues grow not only lengthwise but laterally, squeezing out extra capacity from the roads.

In so-called h.o.m.ogenous traffic flows, where every vehicle is roughly the same size and same type, lane discipline makes sense: You cannot fit two cars into one lane. It is also easy to figure out the maximum capacity of a road and to try to predict driver behavior through relatively simple traffic models like the previously discussed "car following." But in heterogeneous traffic flows, like Delhi's, where nonmotorized traffic can make up as much as two-thirds of the traffic stream, those formal models are of little use-having bicycles or scooters queue one per lane at a traffic light, for example, would create ma.s.sive traffic jams.

It can be unnerving to sit at a Delhi intersection in the back of an auto-rickshaw and feel humanity press to within inches, or to see bicycles slowly thread between teeming lorries. When the traffic compresses in this way, the number of what engineers call conflicts increases-there are, to put it simply, more chances for someone to try to occupy the same s.p.a.ce at the same time as someone else. In conventional traffic-engineering thought, the more conflict, the less safe the system. But again, Delhi challenges preconceptions. In a study of various locations around Delhi, Tiwari and a group of researchers found that the sites that had a low conflict rate tended to have a high fatality rate, and vice versa. In other words, the seeming chaos functioned as a kind of safety device. More conflicts meant lower speeds, which meant fewer chances for fatal crashes. The higher the speeds, the better the car and truck traffic flowed, the worse it was for the bicycles and pedestrians. Even when the roads were crowded, however, they were hardly ideal for cyclists. Studies show that 62 percent of the cycle fatalities during peak hours were because of collisions with trucks and buses, which tend to use the same lane as the cyclists. Self-organization clearly has its limits.

The second point is that traffic culture can be more important than laws or infrastructure in determining the feel of a place. In China, which is undergoing the fastest motorization in history, the power of traffic culture was made clear to me one afternoon as I sat studying an intersection in the Jingan neighborhood of Shanghai, from the G.o.d's-eye perspective of my thirteenth-floor hotel room. At first glance, the intersection, ringed by office buildings and well marked with signs and signals, was unremarkable. But then I took a closer look.

Traffic engineers note that signalized four-way intersections have over fifty total points of conflict, or places where the turning movements and crisscrossing flows might interfere. At the intersection of Shimen Yilu and Weihai Lu, that number seemed hopelessly low. As groups of cars hurtled toward other groups of cars, I fully expected to see a collision. Instead, time seemed to slow, s.p.a.ce compressed like an accordion, and in that small cl.u.s.ter the various parties worked a way through. Then the accordion expanded again, the s.p.a.ce opened up, and the speed increased as all the parties went on their way. It seemed to be orchestrated by some giant invisible hand.

But the sheer range of ways for things to go wrong was staggering. Cars moving down Weihai Lu will use the oncoming left-turn lane to pa.s.s cars moving in the same direction. Bikes coming down Shimen Yilu and wanting to turn left onto Weihai Lu will park themselves in the middle of the big intersection, waiting to find an opening in three lanes of oncoming traffic. A pedestrian escapes one right-turning car only to be almost hit by a left-turning bicycle, who in turn narrowly avoids being struck by a vehicle that has crossed the yellow line to get around another car. There is no left-turn arrow, so when Shimen Yilu northbound gets the green, all four lanes of cars begin to move. But the cars turning left must navigate the two-way stream of bike and moped traffic before plunging farther into the wide, crowded zebra-striped pedestrian crosswalk. Cars pay little heed to the pedestrians crossing; even if there are huge ma.s.sings, the cars will still push through, sometimes stranding pedestrians between two streams of probing cars. The two-way bike traffic does not look to necessarily follow any rule of thumb regarding being on the right or left, and on Weihai Lu, it's not uncommon to see bikes almost have head-on collisions.

In theory, this intersection could have been anywhere, from Houston to Hamburg. But what went on within that intersection was something else entirely. Crossings continued after the lights had changed, pedestrians seemed to cross as if they had given up on life, and drivers seemed to be doing their best to oblige that wish.

In a study a few years ago, a group of researchers examined a number of intersections in Tokyo and a number of comparable intersections in Beijing. Physically, the intersections were essentially the same. But those in Tokyo handled up to twice twice as many vehicles in an hour. What was the difference? The researchers had several ideas. One was that Tokyo had more new and higher-quality vehicles, which could start and stop more quickly. Another was that by contrast with Tokyo, Beijing had many more bicycles. In 2000, bicycles still accounted for 38 percent of all daily trips in the city, with cars at 23 percent, according to the Beijing Transportation Research Center (the gap has since been closing). Bicycles, the researchers noted, were often not separate from the main traffic flow, and so weaving bikes caused "lateral disturbance." as many vehicles in an hour. What was the difference? The researchers had several ideas. One was that Tokyo had more new and higher-quality vehicles, which could start and stop more quickly. Another was that by contrast with Tokyo, Beijing had many more bicycles. In 2000, bicycles still accounted for 38 percent of all daily trips in the city, with cars at 23 percent, according to the Beijing Transportation Research Center (the gap has since been closing). Bicycles, the researchers noted, were often not separate from the main traffic flow, and so weaving bikes caused "lateral disturbance."

The most important difference had nothing to do with the quality or composition of Beijing's traffic flow; it concerned the behavior of its partic.i.p.ants. In Tokyo, signal compliance by cars and pedestrians was, like j.a.panese culture itself, rigorously formal and polite. In Beijing, the researchers observed, drivers (and cyclists and pedestrians) were much more likely to violate traffic signals. People not only entered the intersection after the light had changed, the researchers found, but before. before. This impression was confirmed to me by Scott Kronick, a longtime Beijing resident who heads Ogilvy Public Relations' Chinese division. "Driving in China is total offense-you go for it. You'll see people on the green light trying to take left-hand turns before the traffic goes through." This impression was confirmed to me by Scott Kronick, a longtime Beijing resident who heads Ogilvy Public Relations' Chinese division. "Driving in China is total offense-you go for it. You'll see people on the green light trying to take left-hand turns before the traffic goes through."

One of the more outlandish transportation proposals made by the Red Guards during China's Cultural Revolution-along with banning private vehicles and demanding that rickshaw pa.s.sengers pedal the rickshaws-was to change the meaning of traffic lights: Red would mean "go," green would mean "stop." To look at Chinese cities today, you might not realize that the proposal never took hold.

At first, the traffic disorder seems a bit surprising, given the strictness of the Chinese government in other areas of life (e.g., blocking Web sites). Then again, jostling traffic is not going to bring down a regime. The British playwright Kenneth Tynan observed in his Diaries, Diaries, after seeing the wreckage of a car crash in Turkey, "Bad driving-i.e. fast and reckless driving-tends to exist in inverse ratio to democratic inst.i.tutions. In an authoritarian state, the only place where the little man achieves equality with the big is in heavy traffic. Only there can he actually after seeing the wreckage of a car crash in Turkey, "Bad driving-i.e. fast and reckless driving-tends to exist in inverse ratio to democratic inst.i.tutions. In an authoritarian state, the only place where the little man achieves equality with the big is in heavy traffic. Only there can he actually overtake. overtake." As amateur sociology, this is pretty good stuff. And people in China-drivers, pedestrians, cyclists-did at times seem to be going out of their way to a.s.sert their presence, to claim some ownership of the road.

This became clear one afternoon as I went cycling with Jonathan Landreth, the Beijing correspondent for Hollywood Reporter Hollywood Reporter and a regular cyclist. Even within the bike lane, things were more complex than they seemed. Simply by having a mountain bike with gears, I was able to ride much faster than the typical Chinese commuter on their heavy Flying Pigeon, who years ago would have commanded the entire street. But I was still not top of the food chain in the bike lane-faster still are the electric-powered bicycles, one of which almost hit me head-on. Then there are the motorized three-wheeled vehicles commissioned to transport Beijing's handicapped-and, it seemed, to add to their ranks. "Those guys use the bike lane too," Landreth told me, "and they get really annoyed when you're in the way." and a regular cyclist. Even within the bike lane, things were more complex than they seemed. Simply by having a mountain bike with gears, I was able to ride much faster than the typical Chinese commuter on their heavy Flying Pigeon, who years ago would have commanded the entire street. But I was still not top of the food chain in the bike lane-faster still are the electric-powered bicycles, one of which almost hit me head-on. Then there are the motorized three-wheeled vehicles commissioned to transport Beijing's handicapped-and, it seemed, to add to their ranks. "Those guys use the bike lane too," Landreth told me, "and they get really annoyed when you're in the way."

I was given another theory on Chinese traffic behavior by Liu Shinan, a columnist at the China Daily, China Daily, a government-owned newspaper. I happened to be in China at a time when several vigorous campaigns were under way, in part to improve traffic before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In Shanghai, officials were threatening to post photographs of jaywalkers in their place of business. Liu thought the tactic might work. "We Chinese attach importance to face," he told me as we sat in the newspaper's canteen. "When they jaywalk they don't care too much about it, because all the people around them are strangers. They don't think they have lost face. But if you published a photo in my unit here, I would feel very embarra.s.sed." What was happening in Shanghai was, in essence, a version of the eBay-style reputation-management system discussed earlier in this book. But why were such measures deemed necessary? The roots of Beijing's traffic lawlessness, Liu suggested to me, lie in history. "After the Cultural Revolution, which lasted for ten years, it was a chaotic society," he said. "People didn't show any respect to any law, because Chairman Mao encouraged the people to revolt, to question authority." a government-owned newspaper. I happened to be in China at a time when several vigorous campaigns were under way, in part to improve traffic before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In Shanghai, officials were threatening to post photographs of jaywalkers in their place of business. Liu thought the tactic might work. "We Chinese attach importance to face," he told me as we sat in the newspaper's canteen. "When they jaywalk they don't care too much about it, because all the people around them are strangers. They don't think they have lost face. But if you published a photo in my unit here, I would feel very embarra.s.sed." What was happening in Shanghai was, in essence, a version of the eBay-style reputation-management system discussed earlier in this book. But why were such measures deemed necessary? The roots of Beijing's traffic lawlessness, Liu suggested to me, lie in history. "After the Cultural Revolution, which lasted for ten years, it was a chaotic society," he said. "People didn't show any respect to any law, because Chairman Mao encouraged the people to revolt, to question authority."

So were these countless infractions little acts of everyday rebellion? Were drivers still paying heed to Mao's praise of "lawlessness" as a social good? Or can the roots of China's disorganized traffic be traced even further back? It has long been argued, for example, that Confucian ethics, which emphasize personal relationships and the cultivation of private virtues, contribute to a diminished sense of public morality and civic culture. In his 1935 best-seller My Country and My People, My Country and My People, Lin Yutang wrote that the lack of "personal rights" had led to an individualistic, deep-seated indifference toward the public good. "We are great enough to elaborate a perfect system of official impeachment and civil service and traffic regulations and library reading-room rules," Lin Yutang observed, "but we are also great enough to break all systems, to ignore them, circ.u.mvent them, play with them, and become superior to them." In opposition to the Socratic tradition of the West, Confucianism emphasizes personal ethics and virtues over the "rule of law." As the legal scholar Albert H. Y. Chen writes, "in situations where there were disputes, people were encouraged to compromise and give concessions rather than to a.s.sert their self-interest or rights by litigation." Indeed, one can find echoes of this on the streets of China today. In the span of a few weeks, I saw several instances where minor traffic collisions had occurred. When this happens in the United States, drivers generally exchange insurance information and move on; in Beijing, the parties involved were engaged in heated negotiation, often surrounded by a crowd that had enthusiastically joined the proceedings. Lin Yutang wrote that the lack of "personal rights" had led to an individualistic, deep-seated indifference toward the public good. "We are great enough to elaborate a perfect system of official impeachment and civil service and traffic regulations and library reading-room rules," Lin Yutang observed, "but we are also great enough to break all systems, to ignore them, circ.u.mvent them, play with them, and become superior to them." In opposition to the Socratic tradition of the West, Confucianism emphasizes personal ethics and virtues over the "rule of law." As the legal scholar Albert H. Y. Chen writes, "in situations where there were disputes, people were encouraged to compromise and give concessions rather than to a.s.sert their self-interest or rights by litigation." Indeed, one can find echoes of this on the streets of China today. In the span of a few weeks, I saw several instances where minor traffic collisions had occurred. When this happens in the United States, drivers generally exchange insurance information and move on; in Beijing, the parties involved were engaged in heated negotiation, often surrounded by a crowd that had enthusiastically joined the proceedings.

In China, things were happening in traffic faster than the government could keep pace. A few decades ago, a city such as Beijing did not have much in the way of cars, or even commutes. Privately owned vehicles were illegal, and many workers lived and worked in the same unit, known as the danwei. danwei. In 1949, Beijing had 2,300 automobiles. In 2003 it had 2 million-and this number is rapidly growing, with the capital adding upward of 1,000 new cars a day. A sweeping new Road Safety Act, the country's first, was pa.s.sed in 2004 to cope with the radically changing traffic dynamics, but it has not been without controversy, particularly when it comes to a.s.signing fault in a crash. Zhang Dexing, with the Beijing Transportation Research Center, told me of a well-known case in 2004 that involved a husband and wife, new arrivals to the city, who were illegally walking on the highway. A driver struck the two, killing the wife. Although the pedestrians' presence on the highway was illegal, the driver was still found partially at fault and was forced to pay the husband several hundred thousand In 1949, Beijing had 2,300 automobiles. In 2003 it had 2 million-and this number is rapidly growing, with the capital adding upward of 1,000 new cars a day. A sweeping new Road Safety Act, the country's first, was pa.s.sed in 2004 to cope with the radically changing traffic dynamics, but it has not been without controversy, particularly when it comes to a.s.signing fault in a crash. Zhang Dexing, with the Beijing Transportation Research Center, told me of a well-known case in 2004 that involved a husband and wife, new arrivals to the city, who were illegally walking on the highway. A driver struck the two, killing the wife. Although the pedestrians' presence on the highway was illegal, the driver was still found partially at fault and was forced to pay the husband several hundred thousand renminbi renminbi (nearly U.S. $20,000). (nearly U.S. $20,000).

One key to understanding traffic culture is that laws themselves can explain only so much. As important, if not more so, are the cultural norms, or the accepted behavior of a place. Indeed, laws are often just norms that have been codified. Take the example of the laws that say that in the United States, one must drive on the right side of the road, while in the United Kingdom, one must drive on the left side of the road. These emerged not from careful scientific study or lengthy legislative debate about the relative safety of each approach but from cultural norms that existed long before the car.

As the historian Peter Kincaid describes it, the reason why you drive on the right or left today has to do with two things. The first is that most people are right-handed. The second is that different countries were using different forms of transportation at the time that formalized rules of the road began to emerge. The way in which the first consideration interacted with the second consideration explains how we drive today. Thus a samurai in j.a.pan, who kept his scabbard on his left side and would draw with his right arm, wanted to be on the left as he pa.s.sed potential enemies on the road. So j.a.pan today drives on the left. In England, horse-drawn carts were generally piloted by drivers mounted in the seat. The mostly right-handed drivers would "naturally" sit to the right, holding the reins in the left hand and the whip in the right. The driver could better judge oncoming traffic by traveling on the left. So England drives on the left. But in many other countries, including the United States, a driver often walked along the left side of his horse team or rode the left horse in a team (the left-rear horse if there were more than two), so that he could use his right arm for better control. This meant it was better to stay to the right, so he could judge oncoming traffic and talk to other drivers. The result is that many countries today drive on the right.

Even when laws are ostensibly the same, norms help explain why traffic can feel so different in different places. Driving on the Italian autostrada autostrada for the first time, for example, can be a shock to the uninitiated. Left-lane driving is reserved for pa.s.sing, and for many drivers in the left lane, their entire trip is one epic overtaking, a process known in Italy as for the first time, for example, can be a shock to the uninitiated. Left-lane driving is reserved for pa.s.sing, and for many drivers in the left lane, their entire trip is one epic overtaking, a process known in Italy as il sorpa.s.so, il sorpa.s.so, a phrase freighted with additional meanings in social mobility. Get in the way of someone in the midst of a a phrase freighted with additional meanings in social mobility. Get in the way of someone in the midst of a sorpa.s.so sorpa.s.so and they will soon drive so close that you can feel, on the back of your neck, the heat of their headlights, which they're flashing furiously. This is less a matter of aggressiveness than incredulousness at your violation of the standard. and they will soon drive so close that you can feel, on the back of your neck, the heat of their headlights, which they're flashing furiously. This is less a matter of aggressiveness than incredulousness at your violation of the standard.

"The law in most European countries is to drive as far to the right as is practical," explained Per Garder, a Swedish professor of traffic engineering who now teaches at the University of Maine. "But in America that's just on paper-the person who comes from behind almost always yields to the person in front, while in Italy it's the person behind. You are supposed to move away and let them pa.s.s. As an American driver it is difficult to remember, especially if you're going above the speed limit yourself-why shouldn't you be allowed to be in the pa.s.sing lane?" In the United States, a rather hazy norm (and a confusing array of laws) says that the left lane is reserved for the fastest traffic, but this is not as rigidly ingrained as it is in Italy. In fact, in the United States one is likely to see the occasional reaction (pa.s.sive-aggressive braking, refusal to move, etc.) to Italian-style tailgating. Americans, perhaps out of some sense that equality or fairness or individual rights have been violated, seem to take these acts more personally. In Italy, which has a historically weak central government and overall civic culture, the citizenry relies less on the state for articulating concepts like fairness and equality. This, at least, was the theory presented to me in Rome by Giuseppe Cesaro, an official with the Automobile Club d'Italia. "In American movies, they always say, 'I pay taxes. I have my rights.' In Italy no one's going to say this. You pay taxes? Then you are a fool."

Norms may be cultural, but traffic can also create its own culture. Consider the case of jaywalking in New York City and Copenhagen. In both places, jaywalking, or crossing against the light, is technically prohibited. In both places, people have been ticketed for doing it. But the visitor to either city today will witness a shocking study in contrast. In New York City, where the term jaywalking jaywalking was popularized, originally referring to those hapless b.u.mpkins, or country "jays," who came to the city with little notion of how to perambulate properly in big-city traffic, was popularized, originally referring to those hapless b.u.mpkins, or country "jays," who came to the city with little notion of how to perambulate properly in big-city traffic, waiting waiting for the signal is now the sign of a novice from the sticks. By contrast, the average Copenhagen resident seems to have a biological aversion to crossing against the light. Early on a freezing Sunday morning in January, not a car in sight, and they'll refuse to jaywalk-this in a city with the largest anarchist commune in the world! They'll stop, draw in a breath, perhaps tilt their head a bit skyward to catch a snowflake. They'll gaze at shop windows, or look lost in thought. Then the signal will change, and they'll move on, almost reluctantly. for the signal is now the sign of a novice from the sticks. By contrast, the average Copenhagen resident seems to have a biological aversion to crossing against the light. Early on a freezing Sunday morning in January, not a car in sight, and they'll refuse to jaywalk-this in a city with the largest anarchist commune in the world! They'll stop, draw in a breath, perhaps tilt their head a bit skyward to catch a snowflake. They'll gaze at shop windows, or look lost in thought. Then the signal will change, and they'll move on, almost reluctantly.

It is tempting to chalk up the differences purely to culture. In New York City, a melting pot of clashing traditions and a hotbed of ruthless and obnoxious individualism, jaywalking is a way to distinguish yourself from the crowd and get ahead, a test of urban moxie. "Pedestrians look at cars, not lights," Michael King, a traffic engineer in New York City, told me. Jaywalking also helps relieve overcrowded cl.u.s.ters at intersections. In Copenhagen, which historically has had a more h.o.m.ogenous, consensus-seeking population, jaywalking is an act of bad taste, an unnecessary departure from the harmony that sustains communities. Waiting for the light to change, like waiting for spring, seems a test of the stoic and wintry Scandinavian soul. In the 1930s, the Danish-Norwegian novelist Aksel Sandemose famously described a set of "laws" (called the Jantelagen Jantelagen) inspired by the small Danish town in which he was raised. They all basically had the same theme: Do not think you are better than anyone else. The "Jante laws" are a still popular shorthand toward explaining the relative social cohesion and egalitarian nature of Scandinavian societies, and it's not hard to imagine them applied to traffic. Jaywalking, like speeding or excessive lane changing (which one rarely sees on Danish roads), is just a form of ostentatious narcissism that