TRUE: NYC Turns To Haiku To Reduce Traffic Deaths.

 

I’m all the evidence you need to prove this strange project works. I stopped to read an odd street sign today. It was a haiku about getting hit by a car. Turns out that’s exactly what the NYC Dept of Transportation was hoping for. (Me reading the sign, that is… not me getting hit by a car.)

NYC Dept Of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan wanted to think of a way to get people to actually notice a sign amongst the thousands of images and signs that are already in the city. She decided on pop art and, of all things, haiku, the Japanese poetry that follows strict guidelines of three lines with specific sylables on each line. And so, for a moment, I decided to make a more concerted effort to not get hit by a car today.

Odd, but effective.

The goal? Cut the number of Manhattanites injured or hurt each year… that number currently stands at more than 4,000. Yikes.

(poems by John Morse)

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