Conversation

"The new mayor began his term by tackling the 1,500 annual traffic-related deaths in the city. He seemed to abide by an old theater saying: If the show isn’t going well, send in the clowns. Ever the political performer, Mockus did just that.

"The mayor gave 1,800 traffic cops the boot and hired a meager clan of 20 mimes. Armed with nothing but signs that read correcto and incorrecto, the silent troupe theatrically mocked lawbreakers and applauded polite motorists. A system purely based on public approval was on trial in Mockus’s so-called classroom. And it worked.

“Rather than strength or physical violence to get people to cross the street in the right place, he used behavioral change—and this was powerful,” says Paulius Yamin, a behavioral scientist and Mockus’s former research assistant. “There are not always going to be police on every corner, but there are always citizens, and people care about what others think about them.”

"The 20 mimes quickly expanded to 420. …"
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/traffic-mimes-of-colombia