1617 Please Be Mime

Read an interesting article about curbing bad road habits the other day. Seems the city of Caracas Venezuela has come up with a novel solution that kills too social birds with one silent stone—Mimes for Traffic Control.
Yep. The Capital City of Venezuela has deployed, and simultaneously employed, a squadron of mimes to encourage politeness on the road. So now, mimes are no longer totally useless.
And if one gets hit, well... one less mime.
In any event, more than 100 of them have been stationed at intersections in the capital to remind people to be nicer. They silently rebuke folks by waving admonishing fingers or pointing to red lights or speed limit signs.
Sorry, that last part is considered bad form for mimes. Mimes aren't just silent. They're supposed to adhere to a strict regimen of not using words. It's all about the acting out. Pointing to a sign is like a setting up a huge fan and walking towards it to simulate walking into the wind.
Or using an escalator rather than pretending to climb up stairs.
The experiment seems to be working. People are slowing down, if only to ruefully enjoy the spectacle. No word whether they're slowing done too much and causing a different sort of traffic problem—a traffic jam.
Although I'm not a big fan of mimes generally, I'm impressed that they've finally found a socially positive use for them. Just hanging around blocking sidewalks actually causes pedestrian traffic issues in cities in the US.
I certainly understand the efficacy of silent communication when it comes to traffic happenstance. So the cool thing is, next time I upset someone by using a certain one-fingered silent gesture, I can say I'm training to be a traffic mime.
America, ya gotta love it.