On the Questions of Authority and Public Education: Post-Katrina Traffic Patterns.
As a member of the military I spent more than a couple of months of my life on Katrina-related duties. Early on, in the first few days after Katrina in the New Orleans metropolitan area I began noticing some odd traffic patterns. Odd not because of the peculiarity of the situation (e.g. no electricity, road obstructions that required creative navigation, etc) but because of the way average drivers (of whom there were plenty in the unflooded areas) had reacted. Early on there were several major traffic accidents involving civilians and authorities. The aftermath of a couple of these accidents (an several near-misses) that I observed were at major intersections. So, I decided to see if traffic patterns are affected by the presence of authorities on the road. A pattern started to emerge. In general it seemed that three factors affected how people navigated intersections in the absence of traffic signals and signs:
1. Volume of traffic
2. Presence/behavior of authorities or official looking vehicles
3. Size of the road
(Note: before I delve too deeply into the matter that none of the major factors have anything to do with what people were suppose to have learned to do in Driver's Ed.)
Consider this setting on which all three effects can be examined in isolation and in combination:
A 3-lane highway (3 lanes each way) ( we will call this road A) intersected by residential side-streets (road B) and other major streets as many as 2 lanes wide each way (road C). There are no working signals and since it is a major highway there are no static intersection controls (i.e. stop/yield signs that don't require electricity). On such a highway the following scenarios would be observed in the first two weeks after the hurricane:
1. If there was a heavy volume of traffic (estimate at or more than 1 car per 3 seconds) on road A or B then that traffic would not yield an intersection. This of course becomes a problem when similar volume is on an intersecting road C. I observed the aftermath of two such accidents and participated/observed several such close calls. Conversely, a low volume of traffic (and I believe this is when the more serious high speed accidents mostly occurred) would most usually see people blow through intersections with caution mostly thrown to the wind.
2. This pattern altered when there was an official presence in the traffic flow. A HMMWV (hummer), a police cruiser, or other official vehicle would inadvertently lead traffic. For example, if an official vehicle blew the intersection, regardless of whether it was A crossing B or C or any other combination, any traffic following that vehicle would follow suit and any intersecting traffic would generally yield regardless of whether the official vehicle was running code (e.g. police cruisers with emergency lights/sirens on) or not.
Ironically, there clearly developed a pattern of expectation that official vehicles would not yield intersections, such that when one did it was cause for confusion. I observed an official vehicle yielding an intersection approximately 1 week after the storm. On a two lane road the official vehicle was in alone in one lane. Next to it was a civilian sedan and following that sedan was an 18-wheeler flat-bed truck at approximately 50 meters behind it. The official vehicle treated the intersection as a 4-way stop (incidentally, this is technically what we all learned in Driver's Ed) and the sedan next to it stopped as well. The sedan had to brake rather rapidly as it seemed to be surprised by the official vehicle's actions (which also suggests that the civilian driver was tracking its actions). What followed next was the thoroughly surprised truck-driver, who also was not expecting the official vehicle to stop at a major intersection, having to leave the road completely at what I estimate to have been over 40mph in order to avoid the civilian sedan. Needless to say, had the 18-wheeler not been paying attention there would have been a very dead civilian on that day. Also, it seems that many official vehicle-civilian accidents occurred early on while this pattern of expectations was establishing itself.
3. As a general rule the size difference of the road often promoted caution in people entering/crossing A from road B. Many heavy-damage accidents that I saw were at major A-C intersections. It appears that when people perceived they were on a major road they felt more entitled not to yield or treat intersections as 4-way stops as opposed to the smaller residential roads. Naturally, the problem would lead to accidents when two such large roads intersected.
Another interesting element that seems to indicate the poor quality of public road discipline/education is the pattern observed at intersections once partial power was restored. Many intersections would have a blinking yellow on one road and a blinking red on the other. Now, before the partial power was restored in any meaningful amounts, the city of New Orleans deployed portable STOP signs at most major intersections. These STOP signs again contributed to a sort of acculturation that seemed to cause confusion once the environment began to change with the introduction of the blinking lights and the failure of authorities to publicize appropriate behavior.
For example, an intersection of A and C. For 1 month the portable STOP signs were deployed. Then, power is restored to the traffic lights, but not operation, so what you get is A having a blinking yellow while C has a blinking red. 2 months hence, the proper operation of the light is still unrestored while the STOP signs are removed. However, now people are accustomed to treating it as a 4-way stop. Firstly, we consider that we all learned that in such situations the intersection is to be treated as a 2-way stop (blinking red = stop, blinking yellow = caution). Secondly, at this point the city's heavily damaged infrastructure is supporting returning resident traffic, construction contractor traffic, waste disposal traffic, and official traffic. So, the increased volume with poor infrastructure and incessant 4-way stops created a traffic nightmare with numerous low-speed accidents. So, in this case can it be said that public confusion and poor traffic education caused unnecessary traffic problems? Also, can it be said that the same factors contributed to the confused mess in the first two weeks of the disaster? I think a case can indeed be made.
Lastly, I should point out a peculiar behavior that contributed to the confusion. The official vehicles, especially ones able to run code, contributed to the confusion. Using emergency lights and sirens often seemed unnecessary. I personally believe that this excessive use of emergency signals following the storm caused unnecessary confusion. It is commonly known that young cops often speed and run code excessively. While in normal times this is handled as a matter of discipline (if at all), the 'anything goes' attitude of many people caused accidents. More than once I heard "wild west" being applied to the situation and I recall thinking that this was rather silly since any sense of chaos outside of the flooded areas was entirely a self-fulfilling prophecy. But those are just my thoughts on that and has little to do with my observations of traffic patterns I described above.
As a member of the military I spent more than a couple of months of my life on Katrina-related duties. Early on, in the first few days after Katrina in the New Orleans metropolitan area I began noticing some odd traffic patterns. Odd not because of the peculiarity of the situation (e.g. no electricity, road obstructions that required creative navigation, etc) but because of the way average drivers (of whom there were plenty in the unflooded areas) had reacted. Early on there were several major traffic accidents involving civilians and authorities. The aftermath of a couple of these accidents (an several near-misses) that I observed were at major intersections. So, I decided to see if traffic patterns are affected by the presence of authorities on the road. A pattern started to emerge. In general it seemed that three factors affected how people navigated intersections in the absence of traffic signals and signs:
1. Volume of traffic
2. Presence/behavior of authorities or official looking vehicles
3. Size of the road
(Note: before I delve too deeply into the matter that none of the major factors have anything to do with what people were suppose to have learned to do in Driver's Ed.)
Consider this setting on which all three effects can be examined in isolation and in combination:
A 3-lane highway (3 lanes each way) ( we will call this road A) intersected by residential side-streets (road B) and other major streets as many as 2 lanes wide each way (road C). There are no working signals and since it is a major highway there are no static intersection controls (i.e. stop/yield signs that don't require electricity). On such a highway the following scenarios would be observed in the first two weeks after the hurricane:
1. If there was a heavy volume of traffic (estimate at or more than 1 car per 3 seconds) on road A or B then that traffic would not yield an intersection. This of course becomes a problem when similar volume is on an intersecting road C. I observed the aftermath of two such accidents and participated/observed several such close calls. Conversely, a low volume of traffic (and I believe this is when the more serious high speed accidents mostly occurred) would most usually see people blow through intersections with caution mostly thrown to the wind.
2. This pattern altered when there was an official presence in the traffic flow. A HMMWV (hummer), a police cruiser, or other official vehicle would inadvertently lead traffic. For example, if an official vehicle blew the intersection, regardless of whether it was A crossing B or C or any other combination, any traffic following that vehicle would follow suit and any intersecting traffic would generally yield regardless of whether the official vehicle was running code (e.g. police cruisers with emergency lights/sirens on) or not.
Ironically, there clearly developed a pattern of expectation that official vehicles would not yield intersections, such that when one did it was cause for confusion. I observed an official vehicle yielding an intersection approximately 1 week after the storm. On a two lane road the official vehicle was in alone in one lane. Next to it was a civilian sedan and following that sedan was an 18-wheeler flat-bed truck at approximately 50 meters behind it. The official vehicle treated the intersection as a 4-way stop (incidentally, this is technically what we all learned in Driver's Ed) and the sedan next to it stopped as well. The sedan had to brake rather rapidly as it seemed to be surprised by the official vehicle's actions (which also suggests that the civilian driver was tracking its actions). What followed next was the thoroughly surprised truck-driver, who also was not expecting the official vehicle to stop at a major intersection, having to leave the road completely at what I estimate to have been over 40mph in order to avoid the civilian sedan. Needless to say, had the 18-wheeler not been paying attention there would have been a very dead civilian on that day. Also, it seems that many official vehicle-civilian accidents occurred early on while this pattern of expectations was establishing itself.
3. As a general rule the size difference of the road often promoted caution in people entering/crossing A from road B. Many heavy-damage accidents that I saw were at major A-C intersections. It appears that when people perceived they were on a major road they felt more entitled not to yield or treat intersections as 4-way stops as opposed to the smaller residential roads. Naturally, the problem would lead to accidents when two such large roads intersected.
Another interesting element that seems to indicate the poor quality of public road discipline/education is the pattern observed at intersections once partial power was restored. Many intersections would have a blinking yellow on one road and a blinking red on the other. Now, before the partial power was restored in any meaningful amounts, the city of New Orleans deployed portable STOP signs at most major intersections. These STOP signs again contributed to a sort of acculturation that seemed to cause confusion once the environment began to change with the introduction of the blinking lights and the failure of authorities to publicize appropriate behavior.
For example, an intersection of A and C. For 1 month the portable STOP signs were deployed. Then, power is restored to the traffic lights, but not operation, so what you get is A having a blinking yellow while C has a blinking red. 2 months hence, the proper operation of the light is still unrestored while the STOP signs are removed. However, now people are accustomed to treating it as a 4-way stop. Firstly, we consider that we all learned that in such situations the intersection is to be treated as a 2-way stop (blinking red = stop, blinking yellow = caution). Secondly, at this point the city's heavily damaged infrastructure is supporting returning resident traffic, construction contractor traffic, waste disposal traffic, and official traffic. So, the increased volume with poor infrastructure and incessant 4-way stops created a traffic nightmare with numerous low-speed accidents. So, in this case can it be said that public confusion and poor traffic education caused unnecessary traffic problems? Also, can it be said that the same factors contributed to the confused mess in the first two weeks of the disaster? I think a case can indeed be made.
Lastly, I should point out a peculiar behavior that contributed to the confusion. The official vehicles, especially ones able to run code, contributed to the confusion. Using emergency lights and sirens often seemed unnecessary. I personally believe that this excessive use of emergency signals following the storm caused unnecessary confusion. It is commonly known that young cops often speed and run code excessively. While in normal times this is handled as a matter of discipline (if at all), the 'anything goes' attitude of many people caused accidents. More than once I heard "wild west" being applied to the situation and I recall thinking that this was rather silly since any sense of chaos outside of the flooded areas was entirely a self-fulfilling prophecy. But those are just my thoughts on that and has little to do with my observations of traffic patterns I described above.
posted by Sparapet | 15:11
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