According to Allstate, Seattle drivers have gotten worse at driving, going only a statistical 7.8 years between accidents. That puts Seattle in 160th place, out of 200 U.S. cities — and meshes with more anecdotal observations. Whereas Boise, ID, is number two, behind the “best drivers” of Fort Collins, CO. What do they know that we don’t?
Okay, we’re not the worst. San Francisco is worse. Newark is worse. Washington, DC, is the worst. But why? People like to displace blame: It’s the hills, it’s the rain, it’s the fact that every single person driving — besides you, of course — is a complete maniac.
But what if the problem is our approach to traffic safety itself? The larger a city, the more likely you are to see people ducking the strictly legal approach to a driving problem, or from ignorance of the rules of the road, innovating a set of idiosyncratic rules.
And there are lots of rules, some of which change on you. Did you know that you’re supposed to merge into the bike lane when making a righthand turn? Did you know that you’re supposed to go around traffic circles counterclockwise? Did you know you can turn left over a double yellow line a) if it is less than 18 inches wide and b) you do not block traffic?
It was in San Francisco that I first saw an instance of triple-parking in the wild. At Seattle’s all-way stops, you’ll often see two cars directly across from each other go — if the car whose turn it is isn’t turning, its opposite number will use its passage as a kind of blocker. It speeds traffic, but does make it difficult to tell who’s next in the queue.
You can count on parking being enforced, along with jaywalking (downtown) and speeding in a school zone, but traffic officers have bigger fish to fry than your U-turn across a double-yellow line while juggling your phone for an important text. Drivers are fond of noting how blithely cyclists zip through stop signs, but when was the last time you saw anyone get a ticket for their rolling stop, or for making that last-minute right turn from the lefthand lane?
It makes me wonder whether a “broken windows” approach to broken traffic rules might be in order. When all you see around you are drivers breaking “little” traffic rules, what is the chance that you’ll give yourself permission to bend a few? The signaling effect of neglect would seem to apply to behavior as well as buildings.
The broken windows theory isn’t about taking punitive action, but about reinstating a norm, so the idea is not to hand out a million nit-picky tickets, but to remind drivers of their responsibility on the road. Perhaps if you were stopped three times in a given time frame, you might be sent to traffic school for a refresher. (Or have to pass an online quiz.) But the goal of the stop in itself would be simply to alert the driver to what they did wrong.
If your first reaction is to imagine all traffic in Seattle coming to a complete halt — well, you’re probably right. Maybe we could just start with Safety Mondays and build from there.
Something that bugs me about that study the metric they’re measuring. Plowing down 6 pedestrians would count the same as breaking off a parked car’s mirror on a narrow street. I’d much prefer to see a number of deaths caused by city – I’m guessing the higher-speed suburbs would be at the top of that list. The nice thing about driving in Seattle is that there are few places you’ll ever go over 30. And 30 is much, much less lethal than 55.
That said, I’m on board with Safety Mondays. Though I used to make a point of using traffic circles properly, I do sneak left if no cars are around these days. But I did get annoyed the other day as I saw someone waiting at a turning circle for all the cars to leave so they could make a left – you’re doing it wrong!
You’re right about the basic “collision” criterion not telling you bad things really are. I should check with WSDOT about a visualization of traffic fatalities. I think I’ve seen an Excel sheet where they break down at least by counties, but it would be worth getting a little more detailed. I think it’d be useful as well to sort out repeat offenders from first-timers.
I think you’re okay “sneaking” a left at a circle with no traffic around. The SDOT page on the subject says “MUST” go counterclockwise, but then waters that down appreciably by saying that in instances where cars are parked too tightly on the right or if you need more space to turn, you can take a left if you proceed with caution.