Traffic Control Mimes

From Boing Boing, a Directory of Wonderful Things, one of the best places in the world to check out at 4:45 am:

Mayor of Bogota uses mimes for public behavior control This is brilliant. A March article from the March 2004 Harvard University Gazette has a great profile of mayor of Bogota, Colombia. He’s a former academic and has been using mimes to encourage people not to jaywalk or behave irresponsibly in public.

Another innovative idea was to use mimes to improve both traffic and citizens’ behavior. Initially 20 professional mimes shadowed pedestrians who didn’t follow crossing rules: A pedestrian running across the road would be tracked by a mime who mocked his every move. Mimes also poked fun at reckless drivers. The program was so popular that another 400 people were trained as mimes.