William Phelps Eno and the "Rules for Driving"

I just finished reading William Phelps Eno's The Story of Highway Traffic Control. Eno was one of the pioneers of traffic management in the early 1900s. This book, which covers 1899-1939, is filled with wonderful stories about his contributions to traffic flow both in New York and beyond. Eno designed the first modern pedestrian crosswalk, the first stop sign, and wrote the first police traffic code. When the Police Commissioner said he didn't have the budget to print it, Eno self-published the pamphlet, distributing 100,000 copies to regular New Yorkers and policemen for enforcement.

Eno's "Rules for Driving" (1903)

When the Police Commissioner wrote to Eno in 1903 about the daily accidents at Columbus Circle, Eno's suggestion was: "Why not go around the Circle in one direction instead of two?" and thus was born rotary traffic-circle, which Eno quickly publicized, getting Paris to become an early adopter. Several degrees of separation later, the traffic circle is the main intersection form here in Amman.

Eno's "Rules for Driving" made me remember a wonderful blog post from a few years back by an Irish/Egyptian writer living in Alexandria who offers her advice on how to drive in Egypt. In contrast to precepts (e.g. "No vehicle shall stop in any public street or highway of this except, except near the right-hand curb") the rules that she gives for driving in Egypt paint a much more every-person-for-themself picture. A couple highlights include:

• "Don't worry about traffic signs the majority of the population doesn't now what they mean and if they do, they don't abide by them."
• "If the road is a three lane road, you can squeeze between the cars and make it a 5 lane road. The objective is to be at the head of the pack."
• "If you want the person in front of you to move out of your way, you get as close to their bumper as possible, while flashing your head lights and honking your horn simultaneously. Scare the driver, so he will move to the next lane so that you can pass."
• "Honk at a STOP sign or any intersection. If you don't hear a honk back then no one is coming and it's safe to pass. You don't even have to look to check!"
• "Park any way you like. Diagonally, horizontally be creative! (you could get a ticket on your window, but if the cop with the pocket-book and no stars is writing it give him 5Le and it will be forgotten)."

There are different driving conventions in Egypt and Jordan, and certainly Cairo is a much more dangerous city for drivers and pedestrians than Amman. but nonetheless, a lot of those rules certainly resonate here. In both cities, I'm sure William Phelps Eno would go to town on how to fix driving rules and transportation flow more generally.