Pinehurst Seattle

The title quote is from David Engwicht, an original thinker in the realm of traffic issues. http://www.mentalspeedbumps.com/

What if you began to try this on your streets?

From Engwicht’s book:

Let me tell one other story that underlines the power of intrigue to tame drivers subconsciously. When I first started doing Instant Street Reclaiming events, I would often find that residents were so angry with traffic that they would shake their fists and yell at the drivers. In the early days I used to instruct residents to unclench their fist and their teeth, and to smile and wave at the motorists. My reason was fairly simple. You can’t expect motorists to act like a guest in your street if you are going to treat them as an enemy. But I soon found an extraordinary outcome when people stopped shaking their fist and waved instead. Without fail, the residents would exclaim: ‘My goodness, they really do go much slower’. What was happening in the motorist’s head? Well when you shake your fist and yell at someone, you don’t need to slow down to work out the story. The message is as blunt as a speed bump. Thousands of years of evolutionary conditioning kicks in and tells the motorist: ‘Enemy! Stop and fight, or flee quick!’ In fact, a closed fist does exactly the opposite to what the residents are actually requesting. It tells the motorist to speed up.

Engwicht continues:

But when people smile and wave, there is no immediately obvious story. First we have to slow down enough to see if they are friends or acquaintances. If we do not immediately recognize their faces, then we must slow down even further to see if they might be someone we once met, but haven’t seen for a long time. When we still do not recognize them the mystery deepens. Is this a special day I am not aware of? Maybe they mistook me for someone else? Or maybe this is an incredibly friendly neighbourhood? The storyteller in the motorist’s head may stay engaged for some blocks. Meanwhile, the driver in their head has taken a back seat.

It’s also an eBooklet at www.creative–communities.com

Many thanks to Shauna for sharing this.