Friday Video: What Your Refrigerator Can Teach You About Saving Lives on the Roads
Refrigerator door alarms stop us from accidentally spoiling our groceries. Why should't infrastructure stop us from killing each other?
By
Streetsblog
12:03 AM EDT on May 8, 2026
What does a protected bike lane have in common with a hot glue gun, a lawn mower and a refrigerator?
That’s not the set-up to a bad joke — it’s a powerful lesson in safe systems.
For this week’s Friday Video, we check in on one of our favorite TikTokers Jon Jon Wesolowski — aka “The Happy Urbanist” — who just posted an explainer on “forcing functions,” or design features that force better behavior and prevent bad things from happening.
And whether that’s an automatic kill switch on a household appliance or a barrier that separates a driver from cyclist, these features should be a no-brainer — if we can stop playing the blame game and start getting to the root causes of why people get hurt.
Check it out:
This story is the work of the Streetsblog staff.
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