Recently, many traffic lights and street markings were temporarily removed from a heavily traveled street in a major metropolitan area. █████ ████ ████ ██████ ███████████ ███████████ ███████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ████████ ██ █████████ ████████ ████ ██████ ███ ██████ ███████████ ██ █████████ ██ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ █████████ ███ ███████ ████████
When traffic lights and street markings that are designed to increase street safety were removed, the number of accidents on the street did not increase as expected, but instead diminished greatly, even though the amount of traffic on the street did not decrease.
The right answer will describe a safety benefit to the removal of the traffic lights and street markings. The benefit will help explain why accident numbers went down after the traffic lights and street markings were removed.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ████████ █████████ ██████
People often disregard ███████ ██████ ███ ██████ █████████
This doesn’t matter to us. If people were frequently disregarding the traffic lights and street markings anyway, we would expect little change when they were removed. There was a substantial change, though, and we want to know why.
The lack of ███████ ██████ ███ ██████ ████████ ██████ ███████ ██ █████ ████ ███████████
This is a safety benefit that came from removing the traffic lights and street markings: drivers started driving more cautiously. It’s easy to see how more cautious driving would lead to decreased numbers of accidents on the street.
Most drivers were ███ █████ ████ ███████ ██████ ███ ██████ ████████ ███ ████ ████████
This doesn’t help us. Whether or not most drivers were aware of the change, the number of accidents on the street decreased. We want to know why.
Traffic lights and ██████ ████████ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ████████ ██ ████████ ██ █████ ███████ ██ ███████
This doesn’t matter to us. We’re interested in the safety implications of having or not having traffic lights and street markings, not any other potential benefits.
Drivers were given ███████ ██████ ████ ███ ███████ ██████ ███ ██████ ████████ █████ ██ ████████
This doesn’t help us. Drivers knowing that the change was coming does not explain why the number of accidents decreased.