Highway 7 - Kitchener to Guelph

[danbrotherston]

Yes, excellent point, and I would agree that a big problem with our cities is that we allow traffic engineers, in effect, to design many aspects of the city. Whereas instead the road design and drivers should have to live with what is good for the city as a whole. Example that occurs to me: on the highway I understand signs are designed to break off in the event of a collision, and this is good design. Whereas in the centre of the city, I think it would be preferable if poles would stop a car dead before it hits a pedestrian. If that’s a problem for its occupants, they shouldn’t have been driving that fast.

Heh, this is a good example. More concretely, I believe this is referred to as the "clear zone" in road engineering, and yes, somehow, it's usually filled with sidewalks and pedestrians. I mean, they are unlikely to injure the vehicles occupants. As you point out, that's missing the point.