Peter Mork at Economics with a Face has some intelligent observations about ongoing efforts in certain European cities to eliminate all – repeat ALL – traffic rules in the name of fewer traffic accidents, an idea that scares the heck out anyone who first hears about it. But it turns out, it’s not that crazy an idea at all. Rule-free traffic, seen in some third-world cities, where no one thought to set any rules, turns out to work very nicely. Now Europe’s working on it the concept. Someone apparently went and looked at how well things worked on this matter in the developing world and decided to import it. I bet the Dutch and the Estonians are in on this, I suppose I will have to find out!

Peter has a video link of traffic in Hanoi, Vietnam, whose streets have no traffic rules at all, in what’s an interesting aspect of the supposedly communist regime. Check it out at this post, here.

Watching that brings back all the fun memories I had of riding through that torrent of humanity – and living! Oh that was one of my happiest memories in Hanoi, riding through that traffic, it was like a nice smooth amusement park ride except that it felt much wilder.

Meanwhile, by coincidence, I found a YouTube of Calcutta traffic yesterday, which has the same rule-free features as Hanoi’s traffic. Rule-free traffic works just as well in India as it does in Vietnam. See for yourself, here.