Signspotting 3. [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION -> It's hard to imagine a world without signs. No stop signs, no arrows, no speed limits, no warnings. No bright colours screaming for your attention. Take a good look next time you step outside - signs are virtually everywhere. In the county of Kent, England, alone (presumably the only county that bothered to count), they discovered they had 140,000 signs. But do we really need them - any of them? In 2007, the Germán town of Bohmte (population 13,000) decided to remove all of their signs and Street markings. They even took away the kerbs, footpaths and traffic lights. And they're paying more than 2.3 millión eurós to do it. Why? Because - this is true - they wanted to make their roads safer. They had tried speed traps and cross walks - the usual fixes - but those didn't seem to keep the cars and trucks from racing through their main Street, treating pedestrians and cyclists like expendable supporting characters in a videó game. Taking a page out of the reverse psychology handbook, Bohmte decided drivers were too comfortable with signs - to the point that they ignored them. By removing them, they believed drivers would get nervous and hit the brakes. The roads were remade with a burnt sienna brick to give a subtle indication that drivers were entering a special zone. 'Generally speaking, what we want is for people to be confused. When they're confused, they'll be more alert and drive more carefully,' Bohmte's deputy mayor, Willi Ladner, told the Washington Post just as the new system opened. Naturally, without marked spaces, people can park as they please as long as - here comes unwritten rule number one - they