Pedestrian crossings and the trusting society.

So I just moved back to Denmark. I’ve been here just about a week now and I’ve made many smaller observations. But first a brief little intro…

I left Denmark 14 years ago as a pretty much fed up 20 year old. I was fed up with the politics, the mentality and I guess I felt a bit trapped. Since then my contact has mainly been on a few brief vacations. Most recently I’ve lived in Panama, which isn’t entirely the opposite of Denmark, but is pretty close.

Relative trust

Panama is in no way a zero trust country, there is a fair amount of trust between people. I think much more so than in many other “developing countries”, However Denmark is at the completely different scale of things. It is a very high trust country allthough of course not 100%.

If I was to rate places I’ve lived on a wholy invented and subjective scale of trust within the society it would be something like this:

1. US - New England village (95%)
2. British Virgin Islands (90%)
3. Denmark (80%)
4. St. Maarten (65%)
5. England - South Coast Small Town (60%)
6. US - Greater Boston Area (55%)
7. England - London (45%)
8. Wales - Cardiff (45%)
9. US - Greater Miami (43%)
10. Panama - Panama City (40%)
11. Jamaica (25%)

How do I define this trust then. It various from country to country. But it really boils down with how secure you feel about government, your neighbours and other people in everyday life.

For example. In a small island like Tortola in the BVI or in a small village in New England. People trust that everyone knows each other. So people leave cars and houses unlocked. They generally speaking trust that their neighbours will look out for them or at the very least that they wont do anything bad to them. In Denmark the trust is not so much in the kind behaviour of your neighbours, but it’s in the government and that everyone will follow the rules just like you do. This is pretty much true for small town England as well.

In Boston and London on the other hand, people more or less trust their government (I’m not sure 100% why), but they don’t trust their neighbours. Londoners in particular have much distrust of neighbours and other people on the street.

Traffic crossings and trust

The most glaring example of trust in Denmark following the above definitions are the Danish traffic crossings. The Danish streets have 3 types of traffic:

• Cars
• Bicycles
• Pedestrians

There are bicycle lanes and special stop lights for them on just about all roads. Pedestrians also have their own lights just like in most countries. The strange feature about it is that the pedestrians and bicyclists actually respect the lights. Germany and Sweden may be similar, but it is uncannily wierd the first time you see it.

Imagine yourself at an intersection and there are no cars in sight. The pedestrian lights shines red. There may be 12 people there. Many of them young, some immigrants, a couple of guys in biker gear. Everyone politely waits until the light turns green, before crossing. Then the other remarkeable thing happens; no one looks to the sides before crossing. In Denmark when the light says green, the law says it is safe to cross. So no one checks to see that a bus or car isn’t roaring towards them.

Panama is the opposite example. You walk or run across the road when you see a safe opportunity. If the pedestrian light says Red and there is no traffic, why wait? If it is Green, you still carefully check that no one is coming towards you. There is a lot of eye contact to see if it is safe or not. The bus drivers in particularly do not care about the lights, so most people will wait for a bus to cross even though they have the right of way.

In London people take the lights as an indication of right of way and not as a command. People would really look at you very strangely if you were waiting a green light and there were no cars. They will also at least glance that no one is coming storming against the crossing in a dump truck. It is more like Panama than Denmark, but with a bit more trust.

So why do people wait for green in Denmark? Basically people trust that other people obey the law. Therefore they obey the law as well. If everyone obeys the law they do not have to think about it before crossing.

Which is better?

Trust is good no doubt about it. However I do find it strange with trust enforced by government like in Denmark.

Denmark works quite well as a society and this is obviously postive. However I am uncertain about how practically speaking a government enforced trusting society can survive in the future. Right now they are trying various things such as strict immigration laws, however that is really nothing more than a band aid that will probably hurt them more in the longer run than it fixes in the shorter run.

Previously I have written about the Pitfalls of Philanthropy. I still stand by my analysis 100%, however Denmark does pose some interesting twists, which I will try to write about in the future.