Steve Eldridge, The Examiner
2007-09-20 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

WASHINGTON -

How far could a smile go to keep you driving within the speed limit? Do we need this kind of positive reinforcement to make us obey the rules of the road? In the United Kingdom, it seems that it will try just about anything to reduce speeds and improve safety. The latest is a device called a SAM, or Speed Awareness Message, sign that is being tested on a road where speeding has proved to be a problem.

It’s a very simple idea that is sort of like those portable displays that sit on the shoulder of the road and flash your speed. The SAMs add a little reinforcement. If a driver is going within the speed limit, the sign will flash a smiley face. If the driver is going above the speed limit by a preset amount, the sign will flash an unhappy face. I guess it’s like the Mr. Ugh stickers that used to be placed on poisons and other hazardous things to keep children from eating or drinking them.

As you might imagine, there are more than a few people who don’t think much of this idea. They feel that without something punitive such as a ticket from a speed camera to go with the image, drivers will just give the one-finger wave as they pass by.

There are those who think it’s worth a try; that positive encouragement can work in changing the behavior of drivers. It will be interesting to see what if any impact these smiley faces have on speeds. It’s more interesting to see how creative some communities are getting in their efforts to effect change.

I got several responses to my mention earlier this week about bikes mixing with pedestrians on the sidewalks. One of them came from Charles, who wrote: “I currently bicycle to work. My general route now mostly uses off-street bicycle & pedestrian trail and bicycle lanes along main drag. In a previous combination, these options were not available to me, so as a defensive measure I rode my bike on the sidewalk. I felt forced to do so because very few drivers would accept and allow a cyclist to ride where they were supposed to, the city streets. More than one attempted to run me off the road, evidently because they thought that streets were for ‘big vehicles (i.e. cars, trucks, and buses).’ Although the law code at that time (and I think it has not changed) required any cyclist over the age of 14 to ride on the street, the law of self-preservation (which is much older) dictated to me the violation of the coded law.”

Questions, comments, random musings? Write to Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com.