#88 2010 · Swedish Transport Administration × Kevin Richardson · Road safetyincentive-flip
Stockholm turned a speed camera into a lottery: speeders' fines paid prizes to drivers who obeyed
the problem
Fines alone weren't slowing traffic, and enforcement made everyone resent the camera
background
Volkswagen and DDB Stockholm's 'Fun Theory' ran an open competition on a simple premise: can making a thing fun change behaviour where enforcement can't? Kevin Richardson, a San Francisco game designer, submitted the winning entry — turn the hated speed camera into a game with a positive expected value.
The Swedish National Society for Road Safety ran it live on a Stockholm street for three days in late 2010: the camera photographed everyone, fined the speeders as usual, and entered the law-abiding into a lottery paid out of those fines. 24,857 cars passed it.
the move
Game designer Kevin Richardson's winning Fun Theory entry photographed everyone: speeders paid fines that funded a cash lottery for the drivers under the limit.
the payoff
Average speed at the camera fell 22% (32→25 km/h) in the three-day pilot. Never institutionalised — which is part of the lesson.
what came after
Average speed fell from 32 to 25 km/h and the clip went permanently viral, but Sweden never institutionalised the idea — moving the apparatus and keeping the novelty alive cost too much. The 22% figure survives as the standard citation for reward-based enforcement, and the caveat survives with it.
filed under
references
- [1]Volkswagen: The Speed Camera LotteryAds of the World / Clio, 2010adsoftheworld.com
- [2]Sweden's speed camera lottery hit a red light years agoAAP FactCheck, 2022aap.com.au