Do We Need Traffic Laws?

If you had just one minute to breathe
And they granted you one final wish
Would you ask for something like another chance?
Or something similar as this?
--Traffic

A recent study by Arthur Van Bentham found that highway driving was more dangerous in states that raised speed limits after the national 55 mph limit was repealed in 1995. He suggests that raising or eliminating speed limits would adversely affect social welfare.

It strikes me that this study merely validates a basic proposition of motor vehicle operation: the greater the speed, the higher the risk.

What Van Bentham doesn't do is consider alternative forms of traffic governance and their influence on safety and well being. This missive shares evidence from studies of some of those alternatives.

Only 1/3 of the highways in Germany have government imposed speed limits. Yet, there is little difference in fatalities on roads with speed limits vs those without. Moreover, German highway fatalities have been trending lower for years despite higher traffic flows. Currently German highway fatalities are lower than many developed countries, including the US.

Several European cities have also done away with street signs, traffic lights, and even crosswalks in the spirit of creating 'shared spaces.' The idea is to have drivers and pedestrians negotiate with each other as they go. Rather than creating a disaster, reports indicate less accidents and better traffic flow--including more foot traffic.

While such results may seem counterintuitive or even unbelievable to people who have come to rely on State-imposed regulation, the findings should not be surprising to those who understand markets.

Markets are places where people voluntarily come together to engage in exchange. Markets foster self-regulation, lest no trade gets done.

On the other hand, government imposed regulation takes responsibility out of the hands of individuals and into the hands of armed agents. It crowds out voluntary cooperation and facilitates dependence on the State rather than on mutual interdependence.

Both theory and evidence suggest the plausibility of doing away with State-imposed traffic regs and encouraging people to cooperate with each other and self-regulate.