His great insight was that ‘naked streets’ are much safer than public spaces encumbered with traffic lights, humps, pedestrian barriers, and other idiocies loved by traffic engineer.

Every cyclist should spend a few minutes in reflection to demonstrate her gratitude to Hans Mordemann, who sadly died last week. With professionalism, patience and perseverance he showed Europe that people drive slower when there is more uncertainty designed in the street-scape. His maxim was: “If you treat drivers like idiots, they act as idiots. Never treat anyone in the public realm as an idiot, always assume they have intelligence.”

The slide below (from a presentation he gave in 2004) exemplifies what is wrong in conventional traffic engineering. Mondemann was a great humanist and his goal was creating an environment that would enhance man’s better qualities, rather than the present dehumanizing infrastructure who pits classes of road users against each other.

Earlier this week, BBC’s Newsnight aired a fascinating piece which shows some of the best European examples of naked streets. It features one of the last interviews of Hans Mordermann, . May the majority of the 14,000 junctions in this country regulated by traffic lights, be stripped soon.

Image by Alfonso