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When conventional road signs have no effect, designers are turning to increasingly clever ways to subconsciously make drivers slow down or pay attention. Lights which last 25 years are cutting Jersey's street lighting bill in half and may improve road safety. A spooky, black human silhouette suddenly appeared out of nowhere on the roadside of a picturesque country road in southern France. It was the size of an adult, but it had no face; instead, a lightning bolt seemed to split its head in two. Speeding down this road with no traffic, no lampposts and no speed traps – just ancient plane trees towering on both sides – I dismissed the figure as a weird prank. But then there was another. And then two more, an adult and what looked like a child. Then it dawned on me. The cut-outs represented people who died on this road in car accidents. The message came across: I slowed down. It’s a not-too-subtle example of a strategy known as behavioural science or nudging – techniques that make people act or respond in a certain manner. Some nudging tactics are straightforward or obvious. Signs displaying speed, speed limits or reminding drivers to take regular breaks try to capture the driver’s attention directly. Others are more subtle; like the “average speed” cameras. While normal speed traps try to catch speeding drivers at one single spot, average speed cameras punish drivers who cover the distance between point A and B too fast. The nudging works: when in 2005 average speed cameras were installed on a 32-mile stretch of the A77 motorway near Glasgow in Scotland, the amount of road casualties fell 37%. | 
