Rijwises

Rijwises is a fictional codex of driving ethics and procedure used in Dutch-language speculative fiction and tabletop world-building. The name blends rij, to drive, and wijs, wisdom or instruction. In the imagined world, Rijwises provides a standardized set of rules for how drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians interact in dense urban networks.

Origin and purpose: It emerged in collaborative online communities and later appeared in novels, comics, and role-playing campaigns to create coherent traffic culture across cities. The codex is not a legal document; it serves as a narrative and gameplay device to explain behavior and conflict, and to anchor world-building details.

Content and structure: The Rijwise Codex is organized into tenets and protocols. Tenets include safety first, anticipate others’ actions, yield to pedestrians, maintain predictable signaling, and adapt to multimodal traffic. Protocols describe procedures for common situations such as lane changes, roundabouts, intersections, merged corridors, and emergency vehicle priority. The text is deliberately modular, allowing local chapters to add amendments for geography, climate, and technology, such as autonomous vehicle interactions.

Impact and use: In fiction, Rijwises shapes signage, public information campaigns, and NPC behavior, and provides a shared cultural vocabulary for conflicts on the road. In game contexts, it offers mechanics for skill checks, compliance penalties, and cooperative driving challenges. Real-world status: There is no official regulation or endorsement of Rijwises outside its fictional or fictional-adjacent uses.

References: None real; used as a creative device.