Equality Streets

Another cyclist bites the dust on London’s roads – at traffic lights. If the spate of deaths among cyclists is a tragedy, it is an avoidable man-made tragedy, contrived by the anti-social rules of the road. By imposing unequal rights, the fatally-flawed rule of priority makes us compete for gaps and green time. It pollutes the milk of human kindness and spawns a system of regulation that takes precedence over civility. If we had a culture of equality, we could ditch the rules and coexist in harmony. The cycling lobby wants roads safe for cyclists. Well yes, but they should be safe for all road-users. The only way to achieve authentic road safety is to civilise road-user relationships by making equality, not priority, the fundamental rule of the road. Then we’d be able to obey our inner lights instead of traffic lights (the real WMD – weapons of mass distraction, danger and delay). Into the bargain, we’d save the tens of billions currently squandered annually on systems of counterproductive control.