Here’s an innovative idea: A handful of European towns are getting rid of their traffic signals and parking meters.

I raise this not to discuss the feasibility of this action, but rather because there is a lesson here that is relevant to all of us.  It’s relevant to the debate we’re now having about how to regulate behavior in the financial world.  And it’s relevant to discussions on ways we can become more self-governing.

So what’s the big idea?:  You don’t need rules to generate good behavior.

The Spiegel Magazine story says:

European traffic planners are dreaming of streets free of rules and directives. They want drivers and pedestrians to interact in a free and humane way, as brethren — by means of friendly gestures, nods of the head and eye contact, without the harassment of prohibitions, restrictions and warning signs.

In the project implemented by the European Union, seven cities and regions have removed all traffic signs, parking meters and even the lines painted on the streets, with the goal of helping drivers become more conscientious and responsible.

“The many rules strip us of the most important thing: the ability to be considerate. We’re losing our capacity for socially responsible behavior. The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people’s sense of personal responsibility dwindles,” says Dutch traffic official Hans Monderman, one of the project’s co-founders, in the story.

What a fascinating idea — the notion that rules invited us to stop thinking about others and just focus on the rules.

With too many traffic signs and rules — Germany alone has 648 valid traffic symbols littering the roads — drivers are being treated like children, and it “foments resentment,” says the story:

The result is that drivers find themselves enclosed by a corset of prescriptions, so that they develop a kind of tunnel vision: They’re constantly in search of their own advantage, and their good manners go out the window.

As I have written, when people transgress, we write rules to prevent further transgression. But because rules are inherently limited, people find a way to transgress again. This creates a downward spiral of rule-making that causes lasting damage to the trust we need to sustain society. With each successive failure of rules, our faith in the ability of rules to govern human conduct decreases. Rules lose their power, destroying our trust in both those who make them and the institutions that they govern.

What we really need — in a world that is more open than ever, evolving faster than ever and that contains more choices and possibilities for more people than ever — is for each of us to get better at making decisions for ourselves, decisions that are guided by our values and that steer us with certainty.  We need to become self-governing.

Proponents of the new European traffic model say it heartens drivers to take responsibility for their own safety. The advocates envision “today’s drivers and pedestrians blending into a colorful and peaceful traffic stream.”

Early indications are that the number of accidents has declined dramatically in the cities experimenting with the project, which gives credence to the idea that personal values matter more than rules — no matter where it is that we are going.

Last 5 posts by Dov Seidman
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