Harry Potter on common law

Posted on 27th June 2012 by Martin Cassini

In The Strange Case of the Law (BBC2), criminal defence barrister, Harry Potter (who keeps his wig in a Quality Street tin), says that English common law was “this country’s greatest gift to the world”.  Our traffic control system looked that gift of common law, with its values of equal rights and responsibilities, right in the mouth. It replaced it with priority, bringing down decades of death, destruction and waste.

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Pedestrian safety v traffic flow?

Posted on 20th June 2012 by Martin Cassini

A letter in today’s Telegraph says pedestrian safety is more important than traffic flow, and longer green time is the only way to improve pedestrian safety. No. Equality is a panacea: with equal rights and responsibilities, road-users coexist as equals. In the intrinsically safe framework created by equality (as distinct from the intrinsically dangerous framework produced by priority), pedestrians no longer go in fear. Free of artificial obstructions in the form of traffic lights, drivers relax. Traffic flows more naturally, and at sociable speeds.

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Designing for danger

Posted on 18th June 2012 by Martin Cassini

Traffic officers run a system that’s intrinsically dangerous, then devise expensive controls to mitigate the danger. But inevitably they fail, because all they are doing is treating the symptoms of the problem they created in the first place. If they dealt with the underlying cause of the danger on our roads – unequal priority – they could design for intrinsic safety.

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Catch-22

Posted on 18th June 2012 by Martin Cassini

The scientific method requires proof by experimentation. How do you prove that equality-based self-control is safer and more efficient than formal control, when the highway authorities who can give permission for meaningful experiments refuse it? They have a vested interest in the system of control, so it’s hardly surprising. But it is a Catch-22. Will they ever prove their controls are necessary? When pigs fly.

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Traffic control causes congestion

Posted on 18th June 2012 by Martin Cassini

Monmouth. A40 southbound approaching the A466 (Wye Valley/Tintern Abbey route). Got caught there in diabolical congestion five years ago. Heading north to Ross-on-Wye last Friday, we saw the same half-mile 3-lane tailback and were reminded of it. Luckily we returned early Sunday morning. The roads were deserted, but as we approached, the lights changed to red against us. After checking there was no conflicting traffic, I turned left anyway. Unquestionably, those lights are largely responsible for the daily congestion that plagues that stretch. Up and down the land, the same assault on our time, pockets and the planet continues unabated. Will the traffic managers responsible ever appear in the dock?

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Designing for danger

Posted on 16th June 2012 by Martin Cassini

The priority-based system is designed for danger (unequal rights, conflicting speeds, distracting signals, etc), then traffic officers devise increasingly expensive systems (more of the above, pedestrian countdown, etc)  to mitigate the danger they themselves have cooked up. You can of course design for safety, pace Equality Streets. Somehow, lily-livered politicians have ceded power to unelected officials who lord it over us to our detriment and at our cost. Any old irony?

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Brassed off

Posted on 6th June 2012 by Martin Cassini

Today I was timing the traffic lights in Braunton (near Barnstaple) where I still have plans for a lights-off trial, despite a refusal from Devon Highways and apathy from the current Parish Council. The trial is to prove the obvious: that we’re better off under self-control, without lights or priority. 45 secs of red time for the main A39, 40 secs for Caen Rd to/ from Croyde. There is no pedestrian phase; as the lights change against one stream of traffic, they change for the other. Once, I was crossing the junction on foot as the lights changed. I didn’t run. Why should I? I have just as much right to the road space – or I should have. In doing so, I delayed a Mercedes, first in line, by maybe two seconds. As I reached the pavement and he set off, he sounded his horn which echoed incongruously around the village, prompting a middle finger from me. Of course I blame the driver far less than I blame the traffic control system which turns Jekylls into Hydes.

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Equality = no austerity

Posted on 4th June 2012 by Martin Cassini

Does Will Hutton have a tendency to exaggerate bad news? In this piece, he quotes economics professor, Yanis Varoufakis: “There is zero chance of austerity working. It’s like thinking you can escape gravity by waving your arms up and down.” Broadsheet comment used to be all about the inevitability of painful cuts. Now it’s all about the desirability of growth. Will wants government to borrow, and quotes Keynes in his defence. I can’t quote anyone in support of me (yet), but at the risk of repetition: without needing to shell out vast sums, traffic system reform can provide growth and tens of billions of painless cuts. OK, Will is talking in trillions. Hundreds of trillions in bad bank contracts and loans. Underwritten by governments. So “private bank debt has steadily become public debt … where the gains were privatised and the losses socialised.” So much for the “free” market. But Equality Streets would still do more good on more levels, I submit, than most of the pendulum-swinging proposed in this article.

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Wind or traffic lights?

Posted on 3rd June 2012 by Martin Cassini

Proposed cuts to windfarm subsidies are rattling recipients, and challenging government claims to be “the greenest ever”. No less a seer than James Lovelock rubbished the claims made for wind power. I’m blue from saying it, but not only can traffic system reform provide vast efficiency savings, kind cuts, growth, improved air quality and quality of life, it can cut emissions and help achieve CO2 reduction targets, all at minimal cost. Is anyone listening?

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