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The British government has begun removing white lines from roads in some parts of the UK. This is being done to reduce accidents and save lives. The idea was clearly revolutionary.

Research has shown that removing white lines can reduce vehicle speeds by 13% by creating uncertainty. This is the case on the A22, A23 and A100 in London. Pilot projects are also underway in Wiltshire, Derby and near the Queen’s House at Sandringham (don’t ask).

At the heart of this division is the concept of “shared space” and “naked streets”, proposed by the late Dutch engineer Hans Monderman in the 1990s. He believes that road traffic is safest when road users “self-regulate” and streets are free of controlled disorder. His innovation has already been implemented in around 400 cities across Europe, leading to significant reductions in accidents. Yet for some reason, Monderman’s ideas remain largely untouched in the “big” world of health and safety, particularly in the UK.

Monderman’s principle is that freedom to assess risk makes us safer. Rules, controls, signs, traffic lights – all reduce our awareness of the world around us and therefore our sense of danger. On the road, he said, “When you don’t know who has the right of way, you tend to look other road users in the eye. You naturally slow down… and become more cautious.”

A British follower of Monderman, John Adams of University College London, once advised me to join the motorway, hit the speed limit, and unbuckle my seatbelt. What did I do next? He was right. I slammed on the brakes. I quickly adjusted my threshold for acceptable risk. Adams has data showing that states (in fact, US states) where helmets are not mandatory have fewer cyclist crashes than states where they are.

The most dangerous place on the road is the traffic light. Almost half of all accidents in most cities happen at traffic lights. It’s not just a battle between “yellow-light players” and reckless cyclists. At an intersection, everyone should be paying attention to each other, but everyone is paying attention to the traffic lights. They are waiting for orders. Once they get the order, they assume the all clear and continue working.

It’s not just accidents that are the problem. Last October, residents of Beverley, Yorkshire, were surprised to find that traffic flow was smoother after 42 traffic lights failed. In Somerset, safety campaigner Martin Cassini persuaded Portishead to switch off its traffic lights, improving traffic flow by 50%. The lights had never been switched on.

The same goes for the road engineer’s playthings: one-way streets and bike lanes. A recent U.S. study found that converting streets to two-way can halve accidents, cut travel times, and reduce pollution. As for bike lanes, a 2014 study found that painting roads can make cycling more dangerous.

The Highway Code requires drivers to “give cyclists the same amount of space as they would when overtaking another vehicle”, but cycle lanes are much narrower. Although drivers have to pass the occasional cyclist, cameras on Lancashire roads show drivers giving cyclists up to 18cm (7in) more space on marked lanes than on normal roads, and travelling at much higher speeds. Marked lanes make everyone feel safe.

Shared space is not available on every road. Attention needs to be paid to pavements and speed bumps, as well as disabled access routes. But this can clearly reduce accidents. London’s most famous ‘naked street’, Kensington Exhibition Road, has seen a reduction in speeds and accidents. Similarly, the streets of Camden, Ashford and Boynton in Cheshire, as well as famous continental examples such as Drachten in the Netherlands and Bohmte in Germany, have become virtually accident-free zones.

But why, after more than a decade of such “experiments” and “pilot projects,” has the concept of shared spaces not become more popular?

The answer is that the white line down the middle of the road is a symbol of the times. It is the guiding hand of a benevolent government. To remove the white line would mean a loss of control, a shift from authority to individual responsibility, even anarchy. People cannot tolerate too much bare pavement. No sane person wants more chaos and uncertainty in their lives. We need the firm support of a caring minister.

Monderman, who died in 2008 (in his bed), believed that traffic management was a symptom of a deeper malaise. “We are losing the ability to act socially responsibly. The more prescriptions there are, the less personal responsibility people have,” he said. It is this loss of responsibility that leads to the paradox that increasingly stringent safety measures actually make us less safe. The most obvious manifestation is traffic.

The remarkable thing is that many roads (except motorways) have no permanent barriers. We allow drivers to ram each other at 100mph without even putting up a row of cones between them, let alone barriers to protect pedestrians. The reason is that we trust drivers not to kill themselves. We allow them to assess the risks themselves. But why do we have white lines and traffic lights if there are no barriers?

Highways are like restaurants. Here, we entrust our lives to strangers every day. We blindly trust the skill and care of the chef. But at least the chef who poisoned us got into trouble. The traffic engineers who hurt and kill us with their rules, traffic lights, and paint cans are just living in a fantasy. They pretend to make our lives safer when in fact they are doing the opposite. And yet we let them do it.