All Blog Posts (375)

In today's Guardian, Professor Fawaz Gerges writes that by withdrawing troops from Iraq, Obama will begin to repair the damage done by Bush, enabling a new relationship based on mutual interest, not domination. Similarly, on the roads, we need to abolish priority, vehicle dominance and coercive traffic control, so we can start coexisting in peace on Roads FiT for People. Gerges says Iraqis must take ownership of their country. Yes, and…

The more I observe traffic controls, the more I think they exist to occupy and solve problems created by traffic engineers. They certainly don’t add to the sum of human happiness. We have within us the ability to negotiate safe, efficient movement, but traffic systems prevent us from using it. Cycling home last night, I saw congestion tailing back from Lambeth North to the roundabout at Westminster Bridge. After overtaking the jam, I saw the…

I visited Japan last year and was extremely impressed with their transport policy. One of the main things that strikes you is that everyone cycles. There are reasons it happens there and some of these could be used to encourage more cycling here.

Cyclist are treated like kings. You can cycle anywhere and mostly this is on pavements, even the narrow sort that we have in England. You are even allowed to cycle inside shopping arcades so none of this second-class road user experience…

The current system disables us. It prohibits individual decisions based on context. It puts us in fear of putting a wheel wrong. We face mortal danger and needless delay from artificial rights-of-way. Given freedom to choose and to move, we could act according to our inner lights. We could interact sociably in a public…

Unlike the next blog entry, this story, also in the Metro, plumbs the depths of state-sponsored scammery. After the River Ouse receded in York, three flooded cars were given penalty tickets when wardens saw they were parked on double yellow lines.

From Simon Hoggart in The Guardian 13.2.10. "Crash blossoms" are headlines which mean something ridiculously different from the intention, e.g. Eighth Army Push Bottles Up Germans, or Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge, or Doctor Helps Dog Bite Victim. They arise because English nouns, adjectives and verbs are uninflected. The phrase "crash blossoms" comes from a headline in Japan Today about a musician whose career had flourished even after her father had died…

This 1941 Mervyn Leroy film stars the impeccable Greer Garson as Edna Gladney, an early campaigner for children's rights. Gladney successfully lobbied the Texas legislature to remove the stigma of illegitimacy from birth…

Today I received an email from a traffic engineer who wrote: "You simply cannot present a case against signals as you are not a signals expert and do not address all the reasons for them; you generalise and choose to ignore any evidence that they might be suitable at certain locations". Actually, I've always said that signals might be needed at major junctions at peak times, although I add, "but how do we know until we've tried it"? If traffic "experts"…

Professor Dylan Wiliam thinks the calls for a new education debate could delay change. "We don't need one because we know what we need to do" [improve the quality of teaching]. Is the same true of traffic system reform? In the wake of Portishead, Bristol is planning a couple of minor lights-off trials of its own. The elected councillor gets the ideas and wants action on a large scale, but he is trammelled by unelected officers whose raison d'être is to…