[podperson]

There's a new philosophy of road safety in Europe based around reducing the usability of roads for drivers and increasing it for pedestrians. (You might say that it follows as a lemma from the observation that Volvo drivers have more accidents.)

E.g. if you make the boundary between "road" and "not road" less clear and remove lane markings, drivers will drive more carefully. (Amazing!) I visited some towns in Switzerland a few years ago that have taken this approach to extremes -- there are no hard boundaries between road and sidewalk, seven-way intersections (with trams) and no traffic lights -- and it works well (especially for pedestrians).