Anyone who has ever visited London always comes back with stories about the city’s traffic. Some of the people are amused by the chaos of London’s streets; they rented a car, and treated the whole thing as one big adventure. Others were terrified by the madness, to them even taking the mass transit anywhere was a terrifying proposition. These individuals found the traffic so terrifying that they see no reason why they should ever visit the city again.

It is easy to assume that the reason the traffic in London seems to crazy is because of the drivers. It is so simple to assume that they are reckless and that they have no idea about how to drive properly or safely. While the drivers might be a part of the problem, they are not the main issue.

Londoners are quick to blame the tourist for the traffic problems, in particular the tourist who come from North America and cannot seem to grasp the concept of driving on a different side of the road. Most Londoners feel that if the rental companies would stop renting cars to Americans who refuse to follow simple traffic laws, London’s traffic would become more bearable. There might be some truth to this thinking, but the tourists are not the biggest problem with London’s traffic.

The biggest issue London is dealing with has to do with the fact that their city, and most importantly the roads, was not designed for today’s technology. When the system was first laid out, it was long before Detroit turned out its first car. The roads were designed when people either walked or relied on real horse power. The streets were not designed to deal with the sheer volume of cars that are driving on them.

Starting in 2003 and the city started to take steps to help reduce some of the traffic problems the London has been dealing with for a century. The main goal was to try to reduce some of the congestion that led to most of the problems. This was done with a very unique style of tolls.

The concept of tolls is something that Americans are familiar with. It is also something that they complain about all the time. However London does not use the same set up. The goal was to reduce congestion, not to create long lines of impatient drivers. The city looked at the areas of the city that developed the most congestion and set up cameras. The cameras take a photograph of the license plate of every single car that passes under it. At the end of the day the owner of the car is required to pay a fee, or toll.

The system has proved to be remarkably effective. The traffic problem in London has cleared up by about 20-30%. Officials from large cities all over the world are studying the system and trying to figure out how they can make it work for them. There is a really god chance that eventually similar systems for dealing with congestion will be seen in major cities all over the world.