I’ve whinged before about the failure of the BBC to respond to my attempts to air the ideas expounded here. I just came across an email I sent Radio 4’s Today Programme on 4.2.22. Like countless others, it didn’t even receive an acknowledgement.
If as road-users, on foot or on wheels, we give way to others who are there first, i.e. take it in turns as in other walks of life, then, not only do we make common cause and enjoy the sociable interaction, we would be able to do away with the bulk of those weapons of mass distraction, danger and delay – traffic lights.
It would save the public purse tens of billions annually (see this, even just the summary at the end).
Air quality would see a transformation. By forcing us to stop when we could go, and making us continually stop and restart, traffic control extends journey times and maximises emissions.
By contrast, letting us filter at low speeds and low revs cuts exhaust emissions and toxic brake dust by over half, as I wrote in 2007.
Instead of squandering public fortunes on congestion charging, with its intrusion into our freedoms and our pockets, let us build on the Highway Code’s overdue change in priority in favour of the vulnerable, and wise up to the benefits that equality among all road-users can bring.
That the Code’s new hierarchy of road-users has received inadequate publicity was demonstrated when I was crossing the road on foot yesterday and was honked at by a bus driver. I blame his ignorance less than I blame the traffic control system which promotes intolerance and, perhaps most egregiously, puts the onus on the child to beware the driver, when of course it should be the other way round.
I also blame the media for failing to air my work which, if broadcast, would bring these ideas to wide attention and put an end to decades of oppression and avoidable grief.
