Originally Posted by
UniChris
The reality of existing car free settings casts doubt on that belief.
Consider for example how less predictable and aware of surroundings pedestrians become where there's no threat of death by automobile.
And going the other way, cyclists become the not infrequently inconsiderate and too-fast-for conditions threat, exactly recreating driver behavior in miniature.
It's true that current traffic laws are "autonormative" but even without cars, efficient cycling at a user volume displacing even a fraction of car trips wouldn't be safe without some sort of norms and shared expectations of how "traffic" works - just see all the MUP conflict threads and realize that's pretty much driven by the recreational traffic volume, not people actually trying to go anywhere for a purpose.
No one's saying that there would be no rules, but they would be simpler and more flexible. Cars move faster, are harder to stop, have well-known blind spots, and the consequences of incidental impact are much worse. Most of the traffic rules are predicated to some extent on those factors.