When people make the wrong turn, it is rarely because they chose to do the wrong thing.
More often, the intersection quietly invited them to.
We often talk about self-explaining roads at midblock locations, usually in the context of speed.
But the same principles matter just as much at intersections.
At a readable intersection, drivers, walkers and riders intuitively know where to go, who has priority and how fast to move. No hesitation. No second guessing.
If correct behaviour relies heavily on signs or line marking, such as reliance on the KEEP LEFT sign in the video below, that is often a signal of an underlying geometric layout issue. Roads that demand high cognitive processing will challenge some users at different times of the day, at different stages of life, and across different members of the community.
Sometimes that complexity is unavoidable. But often, small design tweaks to alignment, kerb geometry or channelisation can make the intended path obvious and, well… self-explaining.
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