小小創意讓開車更安全

When conventional road signs have no effect, designers are turning to increasingly clever ways to subconsciously make drivers slow down or pay attention.
當常規道路標誌不起效果的時候，設計師正轉向一個更聰明的方式去讓司機下意識減速或引起他們的注意。

Lights which last 25 years are cutting Jersey's street lighting bill in half and may improve road safety.
持續了25年的路燈在新澤西的街道照明預算中削減到一半，且可以改善道路的安全。

A spooky, black human silhouette suddenly appeared out of nowhere on the roadside of a picturesque country road in southern France. It was the size of an adult, but it had no face; instead, a lightning bolt seemed to split its head in two.
一個怪異的人形黑影突然出現在法國南部的一個風景如畫的鄉村公路上。這是一個成年人的體形，但是沒有臉；一道閃電似乎把它的頭劈成了兩半。

Speeding down this road with no traffic, no lampposts and no speed traps – just ancient plane trees towering on both sides – I dismissed the figure as a weird prank. But then there was another. And then two more, an adult and what looked like a child. Then it dawned on me. The cut-outs represented people who died on this road in car accidents. The message came across: I slowed down.
沿着這條沒有交通擁擠，沒有路燈，沒有限速，只是兩邊種滿樹木的道路上加速，我把這個景象當作一個奇怪的惡作劇。但是之後又出現了另一個，然後又出現兩個，一個成年人和一個看起來像孩子一樣的人。然後我恍然大悟。這個景象代表了在這條路上出車禍去世的人們。我領會到了它要傳達的信息：我車速慢了下來。

It’s a not-too-subtle example of a strategy known as behavioural science or nudging – techniques that make people act or respond in a certain manner. Some nudging tactics are straightforward or obvious. Signs displaying speed, speed limits or reminding drivers to take regular breaks try to capture the driver’s attention directly. Others are more subtle; like the “average speed” cameras. While normal speed traps try to catch speeding drivers at one single spot, average speed cameras punish drivers who cover the distance between point A and B too fast. The nudging works: when in 2005 average speed cameras were installed on a 32-mile stretch of the A77 motorway near Glasgow in Scotland, the amount of road casualties fell 37%.
這一不太微妙的策略被稱爲行爲科學——這個技術，使人以某種方式行動或是做出迴應。一些“督促”策略是直白或是明顯的。標識牌顯示速度、速度限制或是通過一些有規律的變化來直接引起司機的注意。其他的更加微妙，像“平均速度”相機。當規定一個正常速度來捕捉超速駕駛者在某一點的速度時，平均速度相機就會捕捉下來，懲罰從A到B點距離超速的司機。這些相機被用在：2005年時的平均速度的相機被安裝在蘇格蘭的格拉斯哥附近的一個32英里的A77高速公路上，道路傷亡數量下降了37%。

Then there are measures that tap more into the subconscious. Some road construction sites use smiley signs to influence driver behaviour: At the start of the road works the smiley is sad – but it gets progressively happier as you’re nearing the end of the construction zone. The goal is to keep drivers alert and decrease their frustration while they have to keep to a lower speed limit. In a similar vein speed boards in the UK have had a smiley added underneath. They smile at cars under the speed limit, and frown at those that go above it.
還有更多利用潛意識的措施。一些道路建築工地用笑臉符號影響司機的駕駛行爲：在剛進入道路施工區時那個笑臉是悲傷的——但是當你靠近施工區的盡頭時它會逐漸快樂起來。它的目標是保持司機警惕，當他們不得不保持一個較低的速度限制時，降低他們的失落心情。本着同樣的目的，在英國速度主板下面會添加一個笑臉。它們對低於限速行駛的汽車微笑，對超過限速的汽車皺眉。Bumping behaviour
碰撞行爲

Roads in some countries are clearly more dangerous than in others. India accounts for 10% of all road fatalities – about 137,000 people died on Indian roads in 2011 alone. Even though the country’s first access-control motorway – the six-lane Mumbai-Pune Expressway is relatively less dangerous than cramped urban streets, there have been more than 2,000 accidents, with at least 500 fatalities, in its 12 years of operation. Nudging is one way of dealing with the problem. Final Mile is a Mumbai-based behavioural science and design firm that hopes it can play mind tricks with Indian drivers to persuade them to slow down and pay more attention.
一些國家的道路明顯比其他國家的更加危險。印度佔所有道路死亡的10%——僅在2011年在印度的道路上就有大約13.7萬人死亡。即使在該國首條限行的車道上（有六條行車線的孟買-浦那高速公路），在投入使用的12年內，也發生了2000多起事故，其中至少有500起死亡事故，儘管這條路比擁擠的城市街道相對安全些。“督促”是一種處理問題的方式。孟買行爲科學和設計公司“最後一英里”希望它能利用心理戰術勸印度司機開慢點，對道路安全多加重視。

More than three-quarters of accidents happen because of a human error, says Ram Prasad, one of the company's co-founders. Specifically, five aspects of human nature are at play: overconfidence; inattention; skewed perception of risk; lack of feedback; and lack of empathy – due to poor eye contact at high speeds.
該公司創始人之一拉姆•普拉薩德說，超過四分之三的事故的發生是由於人爲錯誤。具體來說，是人性的五個方面在起作用：過度自信，注意力不集中，不正確的風險意識，缺乏反饋，以及缺乏同情心——因爲在高速路上不能進行眼神交流。

So, to get overconfident and inattentive drivers to slow down at India’s more than 13,000 open railway crossings, Final Mile has installed speed-bumps that run diagonally, rather than perpendicular, to the road. The front wheels of a car cross the bump one after the other, rather than in unison, making the car swing from side to side. “They bring in unfamiliarity,” says Prasad, “motorists tend to slow down significantly and therefore pay more attention to an oncoming train.” On the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, these speed-breakers are also painted with thicker yellow lines, making them appear higher. This tricks the drivers, forcing them to reduce speed before approaching them.
因此，爲了讓過度自信和粗心的司機在印度1.3萬多個開放鐵路道口放慢速度，“最後一里”安裝了顛簸的斜線減速帶，而不是垂直的。汽車的前輪通過一個又一個的顛簸，而不是一致的，使汽車不停的擺動。普拉薩德說：“他們帶來了不一樣的感覺，駕車者往往都明顯地速度變慢，因此更會注意到列車駛來。”在孟買-浦那高速公路，這些減速帶也塗有厚厚的黃線，使他們顯得更高。這迫使司機們在接近他們的時候減速。

Going the extra smile
額外的微笑

Another tactic is to humanise signage. The black silhouettes on French and Canadian roads are one example, large posters in India showing shocking pictures of a man’s face in a crash are another. “This builds empathy,” says Prasad. “And instead of just saying ‘drive slowly', we show what happens if you drive fast,” he says.
另一個策略是以人爲本的標誌。法國和加拿大道路上的黑色影子就是一個例子，另一個例子是印度的一個大海報呈現的在一次車禍中的男人震驚的臉。普拉薩德說：“這個海報使人感同身受，相比只是說一句‘慢速駕駛’，我們展示瞭如果你開車太快會發生什麼。”

On some UK roads the familiar “Children crossing” sign with outlines of running children has been replaced by black life-size silhouettes of children instead. It works even better if “the children featuring on the poster are saying ‘I live here,’ or ‘I want my daddy to come home safely',” says Pelle Guldborg Hansen, behavioural scientist at the University of Southern Denmark, and chairman of the Danish Nudging Network.
在英國的一些道路就有很熟悉的“兒童通行”的標誌，用黑色的真人大小的孩子的輪廓代替奔跑的孩子。佩爾古爾堡漢森是南丹麥大學的行爲科學家和丹麥網絡主席，他說：“它甚至比海報上的孩子們說，我住在這裏，或者我希望我爸爸能平平安安回家的效果更好。”

This makes the impact of aggressive driving very obvious, and creates awareness in an automatic, effortless way – which is crucial, says Ivo Vlaev, an experimental psychologist at Imperial College London in the UK.
“這使得攻擊性駕駛的後果非常明顯，而且自然而然、毫不費力就灌輸了這一意識，這是至關重要的”，英國倫敦帝國學院的實驗心理學家伊沃說道。

It falls in-between the extremes of calling attention to your speed and a perception of a possible risk.
它既能讓你注意車速，也能讓你意識到可能發生的危險後果。

Another nudge by illusion is a reminder of the force of the law by using fake police officers. In Bangalore, life-size khaki-clad cardboard cut-outs of policemen are used to persuade drivers to behave. Similar tricks are used in China, the United States and some European countries. In Preston, a town in the UK, motorists hit the brakes after mistaking life-sized metal replicas for real police officers. Some towns have placed life-size cardboard cut-outs of police cars on bridges crossing highways.
另一個通過幻象進行督促的例子是用“假警察”來提醒人們遵守法律。在班加羅爾，真人大小的土包紙板警察被用來震懾司機。類似的方法在中國、美國和一些歐洲國家也在使用。在英國的一個小鎮上，駕駛者踩剎車，因爲把真人大小的紙板誤認爲是真警察。一些城鎮在跨越公路的橋樑上放置和警車同樣大小的紙板“假警車”。