The Intersection Where They Removed the Stop Signs

In 2009, the town of Drachten in the Netherlands tried something radical. Traffic engineers removed nearly all the stop signs, traffic lights, and lane markings from a busy intersection. The theory was simple: drivers would self-regulate. They would naturally look out for one another. For a while, it seemed to work. But residents noticed something unsettling. The strongest drivers — the ones in larger vehicles, the ones most confident — began to dominate.…