Martin Cassini's Page

As if they needed it, local councils are being "given permission" by the DfT (Dept for Transport) to create 20mph zones. There is also talk of reducing rural speed limits to 50. I'm all for low speeds where warranted, but new restrictions will open the door to more expenditure on enforcement. Wouldn't it be more sustainable to reform the system to stimulate appropriate speed based on context?

Public sector jargon can do "tangible harm", says an MP select committee. "Civil servants have phrases like 'stand ready'," said David Blunkett, "which actually means 'we're doing nothing about this unless absolutely forced to do so'." It echoes the lights-off trial agreed by Westminster on 8 April, then neutered and delayed by TfL (who claimed the credit for the idea along with Boris, who turned down the proposal in 2008).

A remark in today's Observer about asylum seekers is equally relevant to the alienation caused by traffic controls. "As individuals we are not hostile to each other," says Palin, "but systems get in the way." Too right. But systems are devised by individuals. Those in power have been made aware of the defects in the traffic control system, which helps kill or injure 30,000 people on our roads every year. Yet they continue to enforce it. "By threatening my baby, unborn and unnamed, you ain't wort… Continue

Left to our own co-operative devices on roads free of inequality, we get on fine. But on roads ruled by anti-social priority, which sets the stage for dangerous conflict, we suffer the consequences, and we get the blame when things go wrong. The villains of the peace are the traffic managers. They f**k you up, the engineers; they may not mean to, but they do.

18.11.09 In the early evening winter dark, cycling down Park Lane towards Hyde Park Corner, near the Hilton, a bus overtakes me then pulls in to stop. At first I assume he is going to leave a gap for me to carry on through (my flashing cycle lights are on front and back) but no, he blocks and forces me to stop. He is at an angle to the kerb - as I brake, I thump the side of the bus hard with my open gloved hand, twice, to express my fury. There is just room between kerb and bus for me to reach t… Continue