Deference be damned

The 1960s were supposed to have seen off doff-capping class deference, but deference on the road – people on foot deferring to people in vehicles (even waiting for permission to cross at zebra crossings) – persists to this day. The Highway Code says that walkers have priority at junctions, but in the time-honoured fashion dictated by the anti-social rules of the road, motorists routinely assume priority. I assert my equal right to the road space and just walk out, sometimes to honks and stares of astonishment. One day I’ll be killed. But one day there will be equality among road-users, and walkers will command equal respect.

 

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J’accuse

Research fellow at UCL, Dr Katharine Giles, is the latest cyclist to die on London’s roads.

Dr+Katharine+Giles

Crushed under a tipper truck in Victoria. The report in the Evening Standard calls it a “tragedy”. For once the word is correct, partly at least, in the original Greek sense of a disaster made inevitable by circumstance, although there is no catharsis. As usual, the dock is empty. It should be filled with traffic engineers and policymakers, responsible for a traffic system that enshrines inequality and sets the stage for dangerous conflict. Also in the dock should be media editors who fail to commission material that exposes the system, and fail to broadcast the only real solution to our road safety problems: Equality Streets.

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Worst peacetime disaster?

As mentioned before, no-one died of phone-hacking, but coverage has been wall-to-wall. Meanwhile, on the roads, every year, 25,000 human beings are killed or hurt, many of them children. Yet my pitches to press and broadcast outlets about authentic solutions to our (man-made) road safety problems go unanswered.

The Poynton video shows that our roads need not be a misery. They can be a joy. It is said that there is no alternative to painful spending cuts. But there is, as I wrote three years ago in this 2010 piece which went unnoticed.

Is the current system of unequal priority and counterproductive control our worst peacetime disaster?

Equality Streets are widely applicable and could bring peace to our roads. Meanwhile, the current system continues to put us in danger.

Another irony in the fire: in this era of health and safety, the traffic control system is failing in its duty to keep us safe and healthy.

 

 

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Sir Walter Scott and traffic control

Is there a link? No. Humour, humanity, empathy – these abound in Walter Scott, I learned in a Radio 4 programme presented by James Naughtie. By contrast, all are conspicuous by their absence in the mean-spirited murk of traffic control and enforcement.

 

 

 

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Balls bowled

So Ed Balls is caught “speeding” (a fabricated crime if ever there was one). What beats me about incidents like this is the abject acceptance by intelligent people that they are wrong and speed limits are right. Never do they question or criticise the one-dimensional regulation that makes oafs of us all. Injustice is built into road regulation. It presumes guilt. The mean-spirited technical parameters don’t allow you to establish innocence on grounds of reason or commonsense.

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London buses hit two walkers or cyclists a day

Hardly surprising given the vile traffic system by which we are forced to live and die -a system that enshrines inequality and is supported by the state. Story here.

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US article about Poynton

Thanks to Ian Walker for bringing this article by Sarah Goodyear to my attention. Judging by many of the comments, a lot of people still don’t get it. The phrase “shared space” has a life of its own. Equality Streets doesn’t seem to be gaining currency, but I’m sticking with it.

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Chris Huhne

“Any element of tragedy was entirely your own fault,” said Mr Justice Sweeney. No. Huhne is the victim of an inflexible, black-and-white system that elevates the letter of the law above the spirit. Life is about infinite shades of grey. Context is what counts, or should count. If the law is an ass, nowhere is it more asinine than in the field of traffic regulation.

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No alternative?

No alternative to welfare cuts, intone ignorant government ministers. The Opposition is just as bad. No, there is no possible way of putting to better use the tens of billions that support our brutal, unequal, inefficient traffic control system.

 

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Phone hacking or traffic policy killing?

As far as I know, no-one has died from phone hacking. On the other hand, every year on our mismanaged roads, 25,000 humans are killed or seriously injured. Phone hacking is never out of the media. But The Times thinks my Jan 2007 article about the iniquity of the traffic control system is job done. Newsnight, too, see no reason to revisit the subject since my Jan 2008 report, despite 150,000 road deaths and serious injuries in the meantime, and despite progressive schemes which show that equality eliminates “accidents”.

 

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