Simple messages

Sadiq Khan thinks 20mph will banish accidents and serious injuries on London’s roads. Obviously no bad thing if it does. But would you want to be hit by a bus doing 20? Nor would I. These people see things in simplistic terms. Tony Blair once repeated the lazy phrase, “speed kills”. No, it’s speed in the wrong hands, or inappropriate speed that kills. Speed is like fire. Can be good, can be bad. Instead of learning to drive by numbers, we should learn to drive by context (more on this at the Speed tab). The 20mph campaign is well funded, so maybe that’s why it’s made such headway. Or is it because it delivers a simple message, whereas understanding what is meant by context requires some thought?

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Another pitch to the Press

No doubt you heard about the Max Planck study which found that poor air quality is a greater threat to life than war, malaria, HIV or smoking.

Replacing conventional traffic control with freedom to filter at low speeds and low revs would cut pollution dramatically (by up to 29 times). Moreover, it would transform road safety, congestion, quality of life and the economy. It’s something that could be done more or less immediately, bringing instant benefits.

 

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Abuse Part 94

Interminable airtime is given over to child sexual abuse, but despite endless pitches to the Today Programme and other media outlets, state abuse involving over 20,000 avoidable deaths and life-changing injuries on our roads, annually, don’t get a look-in.

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Death penalty for “jaywalking”!

18 March 2018. The woman killed by a driverless car, Elaine Herzberg, 49, was crossing the road outside a designated crosswalk. The AI machine had only learned to detect pedestrians on crosswalks! So human error/stupidity and system error/stupidity killed her, as sure as eggs is eggs. I’ve always thought jaywalking was a fabricated crime, just as speeding is. The fools in charge of roads policy want us to drive by coloured signals, road markings and numbers when we should be driving by context.

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Blithering Boris

When you know about a subject, you are usually dismayed by the media’s portrayal or politicians’ grasp of it. Boris’s self-satisfied vauntings about his transport infrastructure plans are no exception. “Tree-dappled” my foot! What a disappointing bunch they are, Johnson, Shapps, et al.

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HSPoo

So the HS2 juggernaut set in motion by Adonis is going ahead. Johnson lacked the balls to pull the plug. Over £100 billion, which could be invested so much more constructively elsewhere, will be sunk into ripping up pristine countryside for a revamp of a 19th century mode of transport. Has anyone calculated the carbon footprint of this pitiful project?

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Agency abuse

More negligence in traffic policy emerged with the news that in the last five years, 38 avoidable deaths have occurred on the hard shoulder, or emergency lane, of “smart” motorways. An increase in capacity should not entail an increase in risk to life. Yet Highways England opened emergency lanes on bends. Why? And why didn’t they introduce lower speed limits? Who are the individuals responsible? Will they face corporate manslaughter charges?

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Child death and abuse

Top of BBC’s news coverage today was the “catalogue of maternity failures at Margate Hospital” which led to the death of Harry Richford, just one week old. The coroner ruled it was “wholly avoidable”. The loss of a young life is appalling, especially when it’s avoidable. Yet the failures in the traffic system that cause over 20,000 avoidable deaths and injuries every year, many of them children, don’t get a mention, let alone a headline. As far as I know no coroner has ever pointed the finger at the policymakers who, in my book, are responsible for the untold injustice and harm on our roads that go unquestioned.

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Calling Grant Shapps!

When I first blogged about HS2, in 2012, the estimated cost was £32bn. Today a leaked report put the figure at £106bn. Grant Shapps, show your mettle and stamp it out now, and talk to me about how to spend the money constructively!

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Ministerial and media myopia

“Labour is the party that stood against cuts,” said Keir Starmer today. Yes, and like the other parties, it fails to see the scope in traffic system reform for social transformation and beneficial cuts. Ditto the media.

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